All Of The Courage
by speaknowbeloud
Summary: Takes place after 7x13. Where does Brennan go? Does the Squint Squad keep fighting? Will Booth ever find Brennan? Worth the read I hope ! Title inspired by Sarah McLachlan's "Full Of Grace". T for possible...probable language.
1. Prologue

**Let me start by saying that I absolutely hated the finale. Not that it wasn't drop dead, heartbreakingly amazing - because it was. But seriously, Hart Hanson, did you have to end it like that?**

**So this is my way of getting through the next months until we can see what really happens: letting my imagination run wild and hoping some of the good stuff in this story comes true.**

**I'm not a spoiler-free type of person, but frankly, this is all speculation: I'll try to keep myself spoiler-less until done this story (or until spoilers start getting really accurate, but when they do I'll stick to my own imaginary world and not let them get to me).**

**As much as I love the characters in the show, my versions of them are always a little twisted. Mainly Brennan, because as much as I'd like to, I just can't make her the extreme-rationality person she is on the show. I feel that, no matter how deep down inside her, there's a part of her that is completely irrational (thanks to Booth). So pretty much all my characters are, well, OOC. Also, this may be a little AU. And I'll spare you from my lame, horrible attempts at solving the crime with science. I'll leave that to _your _imagination.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bones, because if I did, let's just say _a lot _would be different.**

* * *

There was a moment.

There was a moment as she watched him walk away, that small promise – "I'll get the car" – seeming to breaking her heart, because for that moment she saw herself in his eyes. She saw the pain and the sadness he would feel the moment she got into that car.

But she didn't allow herself to feel, because she couldn't.

She called out to him, offering her last words of love for what she thought might be an eternity.

"_I love you Booth. I don't want you to think that Christine is the only reason we're together."_

She kissed him, and she watched him walk away, and a part of her died.

Everything after that was a blur. She buckled up Christine; she got into the car; she went over the plans with her father.

Her father, who once upon a time had abandoned her. Her father, who was the reason she was taking Christine today: she could not bear if her daughter felt the same abandonment she had once felt.

_Why aren't you taking him?_ That irrational part of her brain – that part that had not existed, not until she met Booth, not until she felt what love truly was – begged her to turn back. _You're not hurting your daughter. But what about him?_

_No, _she thought firmly. Of course she'd thought of bringing along Booth. Of course she'd stood by his side, watching as he held Christine, watching the look of love and amazement on his face as he watched her being baptized. Of course she'd imagined a life where he had come along; a life where they would live in secret, but it didn't matter because she had him, and he had her.

But no. That rational part of her, that part of her that was the reason so many blamed her for the crime she did not commit, it had made an indestructible argument: Booth needed to be her. He would keep the team fighting. He would keep searching for answers, searching for _her. _She needed that right now: someone whom she could count on with her entire life, to find her no matter what she had done to him.

So she got into the car. She talked to her father. And she drove away.

But there was a moment, when she looked back, and he was there. _He was there. _He was standing in the road, and he was too far apart to see clearly, and yet she could. She could see the desperation in his movements, the pain and the torture and need to fall apart.

And then her eyes caught Christine's in the mirror.

Once upon a time, she had been indestructible. She had built walls of brick, a safe house for her heart. Once upon a time, she could've driven away and never looked back.

But she sees Christine and she wants to fall apart, the same way Booth must want to at that same moment, because _he had gotten in. _He had broken down her walls and pulled her out, and as comfort, as a way to protect her, _he _had become her safe house. He had become the keeper of her heart.

And she sees Christine, and she thinks of all the love she feels for him, all the love he feels for her, all symbolized in one tiny, squirming child.

So she turns back to the road and keeps driving. Because from a million choices, she picked this one.

_Because I'm not selfish. I'm not doing this for me, Booth. I'm not doing this for Christine. I'm doing this for all of us._

_I'm doing this for my family._

* * *

_**Hated it? Loved it? Sobbing as much as I am right now?**  
_

_**Reviews please!**_


	2. Too Far From Home

**Okay, so this is the first actual chapter of this story! I'm actually looking forward to this - which I figure is a good thing considering how depressed I was after the season finale. Right now it's sort of a "Post 1 chapter=get rid of 1% of my anguish" thing, so don't expect this story to be short.**

**Don't expect it to be a hundred chapters, though. I don't think I can do that.**

**This chapter mainly focuses on Booth and the Squint Squad. And yes, I know I said I'd stay out of the science-y stuff, but I do have a little bit of it in this chapter.**

**I was asked by Lipush to have lyrics from "Full of Grace" in this story, and I'm happy to oblige! It really is an amazing song - look it up if you're not familiar with it - and I'm quite happy to add it to my story. Also, Lipush referenced it to Angel/Buffy, and this song is also part of the Buffy Season 2 finale. Can I mention that Angel is played by David Boreanaz, and he's separated from Buffy at the end of season 2 as well? **

**Coincidence? I think not. He must just be a magnet for tortured love.**

**P.S - I actually ship Buffy/Spike. I love Angel, but...Spike.**

**So let's get on with this! **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bones (unfortunately) or Sarah McLachlan's "Full Of Grace."**

* * *

_She left._

That was all Booth could think about as he sat on the church steps, forehead pressed against the heels of his hands, Christine's things beside him. She had left, and she had taken with him the only other person he could feel so much love for.

It had been hours, hours since she had left him; hours since Max had walked away, leaving him alone on the street.

_**I'm pulled down by the undertow**_

_**I never thought I could feel so low**_

There were a million things he could do. There were a million things he should do. But he didn't want to move; he didn't want to breathe. He wanted to fall asleep on the steps and wake up in her arms, wake up to his daughter's cries.

Booth stood up, his muscles rippling in pain. He felt the need to run. To _her._

_**It's just that we stayed, too long**_

_**In the same old sickly skin**_

He sat down again, the sun seeming to bake every inch of his skin. He thought of his family in that car. His family, in that car, driving away.

His family, in that car, driving away...gone forever.

_No, no, NO! _Booth shook his head fiercely, once again wanting to run away. No matter how much Brennan's feminism had gotten to him – no matter how much she had rubbed off on him – he still felt like an alpha male. He still felt like he should be protecting her. He still thought she had felt threatened here in D.C, and that was why she had left. Because he wasn't good enough.

His mood swung again, leaving him slightly dizzy. Why would it be his fault? He had done everything for her, and she had left him. _She had left him._

_**Oh, darkness, I feel like letting go**_

That thought left almost as soon as it began. He couldn't bear to blame her. He had spent so much time chasing after her, and she had been his. She had not run from him like he'd expected; instead, after years of proving to her that he really, truly loved her, she had come to him.

Booth leaned his head back, closing his eyes and letting the heat stroke his cheeks, the light blinding him from behind his eyelids. And to his surprise, his thoughts turned to Max.

Somehow, Booth had no doubt that Max wasn't planning on letting his daughter go alone. He had the feeling that it would be quite a while before he saw Max again, and he wasn't entirely sad about that.

But he thought of Max's words, and he thought of the way Max had simply walked away. Because the truth was, Brennan didn't have to wait for Max. She could disappear off the face of the earth with Christine, and she had been taught well – not even Max would be able to find her. And yet, he had let her go.

Booth stood up, determined this time. He could not go after Brennan. He could not go after his family. But he knew, without a doubt, that there was another way he could save them.

_Watch out, Pelant, _Booth thought dangerously, almost snarling as he began to pace in the direction of the Jeffersonian. _There's going to be hell to pay._

* * *

"Now what?"

Hodgins' question pretty much summed up everyone's mood. After Booth had gathered the Squint Squad, delivering his message quickly – Brennan gone, Christine gone, himself left to pick up the pieces – he had leaned back and waited for them to sort themselves out. As impatient as he was, he had learned something from Brennan: you couldn't rush brilliance. You had to wait for it.

Booth's eyes searched the group, watching and cataloguing each reaction. Angela had been nothing short of pure shock, her eyes wide and tearful, a hand shaking as it covered her mouth. Hodgins had been only little less: he had sat, staring at the corner of the table, looking almost blank. Sweets had leaned back in defeat, dropping his chin as he acknowledged the consequences Brennan's action would have on the case.

Wendell and Cam had exchanged grim glances before looking back at Booth.

"What?" Booth growled, ignoring Hodgins' question as he stood up, eyes burning into Cam's and Wendell's. "Why are you guys looking at me like that?"

Wendell dropped his eyes quickly, knowing better than to anger Booth further. Cam, however, was not in the least bit intimidated. She had known Seeley Booth in what, for her, felt like forever. She had been a cop and dealt with criminals with tempers much, much worse than his. And she really, really knew him.

"You have to understand how this is going to look for the case," Cam began, her voice strong in her convictions. " was already the number one suspect. After this-"

"After this, nothing!" Booth roared, shaking in rage. "After this we clear her name and we save her, that's what the hell we do! Don't stand there and blame her, don't look at me like you've got this all figured out because you sure as hell don't!"

"After this everyone's going to really believe she did this," Cam continued smoothly, not allowing her speech to be disrupted. "They're going to give up looking for Pelant. They're going to go after her."

Cam smoothed her hands down her skirt, gathering herself up. "You should go find her, Booth. Go find her and bring her back before she makes things infinitely worse."

Booth latched on to the edge of the table, fingers digging harshly into the rough wood. "You think I haven't thought of that? If I could go after her I sure as hell would. But we all know that if she doesn't want to be found, she's not going to be found. Period."

Cam sat back down, placing her hands on her lap and watching Booth. He was right, of course. It didn't matter if the best thing would be for Brennan to hand herself in. It didn't matter if the best thing was for her to come back and stay here. It didn't matter, because if she went to jail she would be separated from Booth, and from Christine, and wasn't her motive her dedication to them?

They stared each other down, neither backing away from their convictions. Cam knew he was right but knew she was right as well. Booth wouldn't even go as far as to admit that: all he could see was Brennan, all he could feel was a primal need to protect his family.

So it surprised all of them when Cam echoed Hodgins: "Now what?"

The entire Squint Squad turned to Cam in surprise. No one fully understood what she was asking – hadn't she just given her opinion?

"Cam's right," Angela said, surprising even herself. "We need a plan." She stood up, looking around at the group. She, who had been here since almost the beginning, knew who was in and who wasn't. She knew Booth, like her, would go to the ends of the earth to save Brennan (and he, unlike her, would keep going past it). She knew Hodgins would be on board with anything, both because he felt a need to help Brennan after their ordeal with the Gravedigger, and because she'd kill him if he didn't. She knew Wendell would be drawn to the case, but not to save Brennan. He would find evidence and he would catalogue it and if it pointed to Brennan, well, that sucked, but he was looking for the truth.

She also knew Cam.

At that moment, Angela _hated _Cam. She hated that Cam hadn't kept evidence to herself. She hated that Cam hadn't faked problems with the computer, with the evidence, with anything in order to save Brennan. But she also knew Caroline was right. They had all done what they were supposed to do in Pelant's eyes – except for Cam. She had searched for the truth, not for evidence to convict Pelant. She, surprisingly, was the one who had kept them searching.

"Cam's in charge," Angela announced regally, her voice failing to betray the doubt she felt about her own decision. "She did what was right."

"And I," Cam announced, her own voice filled with authority, "am putting you in charge, Seeley. I know you'll do anything to save her. With one condition," she added. "Work as much within the law as you can. No disposal of evidence or you're officially not in charge."

Booth nodded, immediately stepping into the shoes as leader. "First things first: we go against what we've been doing." Noticing the confused faces, he clarified. "Pelant thinks he knows exactly what we're going to do. So we do the exact opposite. We do exactly what Cam did." Taking in a deep breath and hoping that Bones wouldn't hate him for this, he continued. "We stop looking for evidence against Pelant, because it's not going to be there. First we find the evidence against Brennan. Catalogue everything. However," he turned to Cam and prayed for at least a little bit of her mercy, "don't hand it in to the FBI. Everything goes to me. Any evidence against Pelant goes to me as well. We don't want the FBI thinking we're hiding everything, so if you find small bits of evidence that can go either way, those go to them."

He turned to each person individually. "Angela, you keep doing your computer thing. Ethan's clues are the only ones that haven't been tainted by Pelant, so we should assume that they're the only ones we can look at with a bias. Wendell, you keep doing your bone thing. Remember what I said about the evidence. Cam, you call up the rest of the squinterns – we're going to need as much help as we can. Again with the evidence."

He turned. "Sweets, you're off the case, so you're with me. We find out how to turn the evidence against Pelant. I'll call Caroline and fill her in."

"She's off the case too," Angela said softly, trying not to break Booth's flow.

Booth sighed, pressing his fingers against his closed eyes. "You know what that means, Cam."

Cam nodded curtly. "I'm the only one inside the law."

"Exactly." Booth leaned back again, thinking over everything. "All of us are going to working illegally here. Cam, you're the only one who's going to be completely inside the law. I hate to ask this of you, but... "

"I know," Cam said, standing up and walking away. "Good luck!" she tossed over her shoulders, her voice not conveying as much hope as she thought it would.

"The rest of us," Booth started, "We're left to our own devices. Sweets, Caroline, and I have no jurisdiction, so those of you still on the case are going to have to pass on information." He sighed. "The most likely scenario is that eventually we're all going to be kicked off the case, which is why Wendell," he said sternly, "you're in charge of keeping the FBI off our back. No inventing evidence, no destroying evidence, but no making them believe Bones is guilty, either."

Finally, he sent them off, watching as each person mulled over their own thoughts and doubts and questions. Angela was the last to leave, her eyes lingering on Booth.

"One last thing," she said softly.

Booth looked up, his calm exterior breaking down. "Yes?"

Angela gave a sweetly vicious smile. "I have no doubt that she's innocent. After all, it's Brennan," she said, and with a very quiet voice, she explained: "If she was the killer, there wouldn't be evidence at all."

* * *

If there was one thing about the day that did not surprise Booth, it was that the FBI was waiting at his doorstep.

He'd been expecting this, of course. How could he not? Flinn had already told him he'd be back with a warrant, so he'd begun to prepare himself the moment he'd left the Jeffersonian. Leaving all his worries about the case behind, he'd swung his mood and his thoughts towards the ordeal still to come.

Swinging the car he'd borrowed from Angela into his driveway, he watched as Flinn tore away from the group of agents and other forensic workers gathered by his door and strode towards his car. Flinn walked with confidence, as if he'd already figured everything out about this case...and Booth couldn't help but feel guilt, knowing that once upon a time he'd had that same walk when he walked up to a suspect. It was meant to make them scared, make them confess.

_But it won't work on me_, Booth thought. _Because she's not guilty._

Booth took his sweet time getting out of the car, getting a sick sense of pleasure from watching Flinn's impatience. Once out, he didn't say a word, simply waiting for Flinn to begin.

"Well, _Mr._ Booth," Flinn began, pointedly 'forgetting' that Booth was an FBI agent as well, "I brought you a warrant. We've been kind enough to wait for you to arrive but we won't be left waiting any longer."

"Of course not," Booth said, his voice monotone as he pulled his keys out of his pocket and headed towards the door. That did not, of course, stop Flinn from continuing to pester him.

"Mr. Booth, I brought with me an arrest warrant for Doctor Brennan as well. Would you mind telling me where she is?"

"If only," Booth muttered, unlocking the door and swinging it wide open.

"Excuse me, Mr. Booth?" Flinn asked, eyebrows raised. "Keeping this information from us is obstruction of justice."

"Sorry, pal," Booth said harshly, stepping into his house and flinching slightly when the rest of the agents followed. He felt as if this house – this house where he had only just begun to raise his daughter, where he could always find safety in Bones' arms – was being violated simply by their presence, and he did not like it. At all. "I can't tell you because I don't know."

Flinn stepped closer, again taking a stab at being intimidating. "You can understand why I find that hard to believe, right?"

Booth raised his eyebrows, unflinching. "She's gone. She drove away."

"Maybe she went to the supermarket."

"She took our daughter." Booth swallowed at the sudden block in his throat, blinking back threatening tears and trying to remain calm. "If she was doing something as simple as going to the supermarket, she would've left Christine with me."

Flinn looked Booth up and down, his eyes scraping into Booth's, capturing the slightly red tint of Booth's eyes: the evidence of his pain hidden there. He crossed his arms and looked pensive for a moment before continuing. "Any further evidence you have that she isn't coming back?"

Booth thought over it. He had Max's words, of course. But would that make a difference? And he felt an unbearable pain at the thought of turning his father-in-law (or not-in-law, technically, but since when did technicalities matter?) in, especially because he was the one connection Booth still had to Brennan. So he shook his head – deciding that obstruction of justice was something he could get away with right now – and prayed that Max, wherever he was, knew how much he was giving up for them.

And that, with any luck, he'd return the favor.

* * *

Booth leaned back against the couch, the pillows soft against his back. He couldn't bear to go into his room, ransacked by the FBI. He couldn't bear to go into Christine's, where all of her security footage had been stolen from him, all those precious videos of his daughter in his arms, gone. It had taken him an hour to force himself to run into their room blindly, only to grab extra covers and bed sheets from their closet, his heart breaking with every silent moment.

Lying down slowly, he stared at the ceiling and thought of all the love he felt for her, for their daughter. He thought of all the painful, dark moments Bones must have gone through to come to her conclusion. He thought of his hands on her belly, feeling their daughter move; the light heaviness of Christine in his arms, the way his heart burst with pride whenever he saw the two of them.

_I will find you, _he thought softly, tenderly. _I will save you._

_I will never stop looking for you._

_I will never stop loving you._

_**If all of the strength and**_

_**All of the courage**_

_**Come and lift me from this place**_

_**I know I can love you much better than this**_

_**Full of grace**_

* * *

**I don't hate Cam, I really don't. With the exception of this episode. I know she was actually the best character, but...no.**

**Reviews?**


	3. Better This Way

**Thanks for all the feedback! I'm actually really enjoying writing this story, even though it's so not what's going to happen.**

**Recently I've been reading a lot of Fanfics that deal with this topic, and I read one by bonesreader265 (called "The Present is not the Same") which is about the most accurate take on the episode I've ever read. I can totally see that version of it actually happening, so if that's what you're looking for, go read that. Because my version happens to be very non-realistic and very not-going-to-happen.**

**However, my story is going to be very, very happy at the end. So if angsty fluff is what you're looking for, you've come to the right place - although you may have to stay here a while because this story isn't going to end anytime soon. **

**So without further ado, Chapter Two: which is shorter than chapter one and is told from the (slightly non-realistic) view of Brennan. **

* * *

She had driven for hours on end, going further and further away from the place she most wanted to be. She'd blinked back irrational tears and fought against the desire to turn around. Only when exhaustion threatened to take over did she begin to look for a place to stay.

By the time she reached the old, dirty-looking hotel, she was almost asleep. She felt like she had driven across the country, even though in truth she had been told to stick close to D.C., and she trusted her father. She'd been told to stay out of chain restaurants and hotels, so the dingy old hotel looked like the perfect place. The few cars parked there were old and broken; the door didn't look like it could even close properly.

Sighing slightly, Brennan pulled into the parking lot, choosing a space close to the door but still too far for people to see how nice it was compared to the others. She unbuckled Christine from her seat and grabbed the few things she'd brought along. It had been a hard balance, choosing what would come with her and what would stay. Money was only a slight issue: she had taken as much as she could without looking suspicious, and her father had promised her that he would get some more before meeting her. She'd brought only one change of clothing, and she'd left behind Christine's disposable diapers in lieu of cloth ones, in order to save money and to avoid having to be seen simply for that. There were some of Christine's favorite toys and clothes, a couple of newspapers Max had picked up, and things to change her appearance: hair dye, makeup, extensions.

The truth was, she didn't want to change her appearance. She was hoping that it wouldn't last that long: with any luck, she'd be back home in less than a month. She knew she'd be able to communicate with Booth soon enough, although not as soon as she wanted, and certainly not face to face.

Sitting down beside Christine's seat, she opened the bag and pulled out the tiny disposable cell phone. To say she wanted to use it immediately would be seriously understating things. She wanted to hear his voice. She wanted Christine to hear his voice. Her worst fear was her forgetting him, and she'd spent careful time hiding pictures and other little reminders into her clothes and bags. She'd sewn tiny tape recorders with his voice into her pockets, bought a crappy little video player with videos of the three of them together. It had taken hours for her to carefully place them all into places her father wouldn't find them. She knew her father would want to get rid of them – would probably get rid of them without even asking her – and even though she trusted her father, she didn't want to let go of these little reminders of Booth. He was her life, her reason to live: once she gave these up her reason to fight would deplete drastically. Christine would be the only thing holding her back from completely disappearing.

She huffed, letting out all her frustration, and picked up Christine. The rational part of her told her to get rid of all the reminders: if anyone got a hold of her clothes, or her bag, they would be able to find out who she really was, and she would no longer be safe. But that little, tiny, irrational part of her brain (the one that had told her to go back, the one that told her she wasn't doing the right thing) had won for once, and she'd left the reminders where they were. She tossed the bag over her shoulder before heading towards the door.

The place was only slightly less shabby than she'd expected. The key seemed slightly greasy on her palm, and she wrinkled her nose at the room. A thin mattress, hideous bright-yellow curtains, and a torn sofa made up the décor in the room, and she didn't see herself having a good night's sleep.

Rolling up her sleeves, she got to work. She dragged the sofa closer to her bed, and then put Christine's car seat by its arm. She did her best to breathe shallowly in the bathroom, which smelt like it hadn't been cleaned in forever, but did her best to work with it. She hung an air freshener in the bathroom, hoping it would be better by tomorrow morning. Christine didn't need any changing in the appearance department, but she needed to change her own hair.

Fingering an auburn lock, she tried to imagine what she was going to look like. Once she was done, she was going to have brown contacts, long black hair, and a very simple wardrobe. She had been skating on the edge since she'd accepted Max's plan: she had to be polite but not too polite. Ordinary but not too ordinary. A name that was different enough to be acceptable but not enough to be memorable. There were so many variables she had to consider, so many things she had to be, that she was scared she would be caught within the first week. She had Christine, too: that was bound to draw attention to her.

Sitting down on the bed, she rested her hand on Christine's forehead. Christine had been surprisingly quiet during their entire journey, although she had fussed a bit. Now she was surprisingly happy, her tiny hands reaching for Brennan's. She'd slept so much that Brennan wasn't surprised that she was wide awake, although it did make her much more exhausted.

_**I feel just like I'm sinking**_

_**And I claw for solid ground**_

Pulling out one of the tape recorders, Brennan pressed play and rested it on her lap, by Christine.

"_Hi, Christy!"_

His voice was silk, so soft and sweet. Her heart hurt, her head spun at his words. Even Christine seemed riveted: she reached with tiny fingers for the tape recorder, pulling it closer to her.

"_Mommy and Daddy love you, you know that, right? Daddy loves you. No boy's ever going to be good enough for you."_

She imagined him with Christine, his arms holding her tightly, his lips pressing kisses over her face as she giggled and wrapped her hands around his tie.

"_I love you. Love you love you love you."_

A tear slipped down her cheek as her own voice joined his.

"_Booth, she can't understand a word you're saying."_

Brennan gave a strangled laugh at her own words, and Christine wrapped her hands around Brennan's finger, squeezing tightly.

"_Of course she can, Bones! She's your daughter. She's smarter than any other kid out there."_

"_Not smart enough to understand what you're telling her."_

"_She doesn't need to understand my words to understand my emotions."_

It was only when Christine's hand landed on her cheek that she noticed she was crying. She wasn't the only one crying, either. Christine's chest rose and fell with tiny hiccups as her eyes filled with tears.

Holding Christine close to her chest, she pressed kisses against her damp forehead and wished he was there with them, holding them.

"_She is very astute."_

"_Of course she is, Bones. She's our kid." _His voice filled with awe as he continued. _"She's our daughter." _

The tape was quiet for a minute before Booth continued softly. _"You know, Christine's not the only one I love. I love you too, Bones."_

"_I know you do, Booth. I...I love you too."_

The tape whirred and went silent, and the two cried themselves to sleep.

_**I know I can love you much better than this**_

_**It's better this way**_

* * *

**Various stories I've read about this episode depict Brennan leaving Booth a letter, which would certainly help Booth be reinstated into the FBI, but for whatever reason I'd rather imagine her being able to call him (an idea which was inspired by razztaztic 's "160 characters or less"). I know it's all angst and fluff right now but I plan on having a huge twist in the next chapter - a.k.a, stick around!**


	4. Just Close Your Eyes

**I know you all hate me for taking so long to write this. I really have no excuse. I've just been having creativity issues.**

**Meanwhile, I'm not as please with this chapter as I'd like to be. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty damn great chapter. I just have high expectations.  
**

**I've been told Booth should be more angry at Brennan, but somehow I can't see that happening. I feel like he misses her and he wants her back and of course he loves her, but somehow I can't imagine him being angry. You know how it's so obvious Booth has rubbed off on Brennan? I really think she rubbed off on him too. I think he sees what she did as heartbreaking and painful but also rational and right.**

**Plus, making Booth angry would make me angry and then I****'d never finish this story.**

******I****'m going to drag this story on for a long time so there****'s really no happiness in this chapter (sorry).**

**************DISCLAIMER: I wish. **

* * *

Booth woke up slowly, his head spinning. His back ached, and he longed for a massage.

Rolling over slowly, he felt a small smile play at the corners of his lips. Reaching out, he searched for her, for the fingers he knew would perform miracles on his back.

Instead, he touched a soft pillow.

Confused, he opened his eyes slowly, feeling slightly blinded as he did. Slowly, the fuzzy image in front of him cleared out...and became the back of the sofa.

Pulling himself up onto his elbow, he rubbed a hand over his face. The memories were slowly coming back to him, each one crushing a piece of his heart. He longed for her even more: for her hands, gently caressing him; for her lips against his cheek in a soft morning kiss; for the way her cheek pressed against his chest when she crawled close to him in the middle of the night. He longed for Christine too. Tiny fingers, tiny feet, a comforting, wriggling weight in his arms. He wished for those mornings when he had both of his girls with him, when he'd hold Christine in one arm and wrap the other around Bones' waist.

**_If you can hear me now_**

**_I'm reaching out_**

**_To let you know that you're not alone_**

Groaning, he punched the back of the sofa before sitting up and stretching. Longing wouldn't help him one bit: if he wanted his girls back, he had to work for it.

The question, of course, was how? He had the Squint Squad doing their thing back at the lab, but he felt the need to do more. He had to do something himself.

It was going to take a while for him to get reinstated to the FBI. Part of him knew it might be easier for them to accept them now: after all, with Bones gone, they would need his help. Rubbing his eyes, he thought harder. Yes, it would be easier. But it wouldn't be...easy. He had no proof that he wasn't in contact with her, and Flinn wouldn't be very easy to convince.

He leaned back again. Did he wish he was in contact with Bones? On some level, of course he did. She was his everything, and just hearing her voice would make everything better – or so he thought. He knew her voice wouldn't be enough: he needed all of her, all of them with him. Her voice would be enough to keep him going, though.

_**And if you can't tell**_

_**I'm scared as hell**_

_**'Cause I can't get you on the telephone**_

On the other hand, he didn't want to hear her, didn't want to be in contact. If he stayed away from her, then he would be able to keep her safe, be able to put Pelant in jail much sooner. It was hard and dangerous and it would hurt to stay away, but it would be worth it at the end...right?

Booth threw his legs over the edge of the sofa. Standing up and stretching, he slowly began to walk around his house. He set the coffee maker and popped a couple of pieces of bread into the toaster. Even opening the refrigerator made his heart break, because it was full of Bones' nutritional vegetables and of Christine's tiny jars of baby food.

Sighing, Booth sat down with his breakfast and began to slowly plan his day. He needed to go to the FBI and talk to Flynn. He needed to get in touch with the Squint Squad. He needed to go shopping for more food.

He needed her back.

Booth tightened his grip on his coffee cup, feeling his palm heat up in pain. Part of it was the cup, but the other part was his need to _punch something._ No amount of determination and support could make him relax, not until he had her in his arms.

That was enough. Standing up, Booth strode out of the kitchen, tossing the half-empty cup into the sink as he went, and didn't stop for anything as he walked out the door.

* * *

The Squint Squad was definitely working.

Angela sat on the couch in her office, only half focusing on the computer screen in front of her. She preferred instead to watch the hustle and bustle outside the glass windows of her office. The Jeffersonian was always busy, but the remnants of Booth's plea were clear in the Squint Squad: Wendell ran to and from Bone Storage, grabbing containers to compare markings. Cam's high heels clicked constantly as she tracked the progress on the case in between her own exploration of evidence. Hodgins had been deep at work the whole day, not even bothering to show up in her office.

Angela had been working on deciphering the clues, but she was tired and the process was long. After Brennan had left, she had felt an undeniable pull towards Michael, and had spent hours sitting on the floor with him, watching as he pushed himself up over and over again, never quite managing a complete step.

The door slipped open quietly, and a soft knock followed. "Angela?"

Angela startled, looking up to find Booth at her door. She was shocked at his appearance: his hair was disheveled, his jacket not quite on right, his tie not knotted properly and slightly askew. His eyes were bloodshot and tired, his lips pressed thinly together.

"Hey, Booth," she greeted softly, moving over on the sofa. "Need something?"

Booth was quiet for a minute before walking in towards her. His walk was labored, every step seemingly painful, his muscles stiff. He sat down gently beside Angela, his eyes on the screen. "What's this?"

Angela shook her head, trying to clear it. "It's just what was in Ethan's room. I'm trying to decode it. Hodgins has been working on it too but he's busier with his bug stuff."

Booth didn't show any sign of even having heard a word she said, but Angela didn't mind. She knew how he was feeling and she wanted to let him speak on his own time.

Booth shifted, his hands flexing, fingers moving slowly. He opened his mouth and closed it again, clearly not sure of what to say. "Okay," he said slowly, "I just wanted to see how you guys were doing."

Angela pressed a couple of buttons on her remote, trying to make the software decode the script, working harder to try to cheer up Booth. "We're okay," she said. "We're working on the evidence thing. So far this code is our best lead and we don't even know what it means, but Wendell thinks he might find more evidence in some of the Bones and Hodgins is going back to the crime scene later to look at whatever clues might still be there."

Booth fidgeted a little before standing back up. "Okay, I... I should go talk to Flinn."

Angela nodded, watching for a minute as he walked away, and then reconsidering. "Wait! Booth..."

Booth looked back over his shoulder, his movements pained. "Yes?"

Angela sat back slowly, tilting her head softly. "I got her a surprise."

Booth tilted his head, confused. "What?"

Angela knew it was a long shot, but she needed to do everything possible for those two. So, taking a deep breath, she answered his question.

"A lawyer."

* * *

Booth traced the rim of his steering wheel, imagining her hands gripping it. He had rarely ever let her drive his car, but many mornings he'd found her sitting in it, engine running and buckled up in the driver's seat.

"_What are you doing?" he'd ask her, tapping the door._

"_I'm driving today," she'd say simply, adjusting her seat to fit the girth of her belly._

"_Is that so?" he'd say sarcastically, leaning through her open window. "And when was this decided?"_

"_I don't need your permission to drive."_

"_You do when it's my car."_

_She'd huff and puff and complain that she was all ready to go, but Booth would eventually get her out, gently supporting her and even offering to carry her over to her seat. She would, of course, scoff at that idea, her arm wrapped firmly around him as she waddled over to the door._

He leaned his head back, rolling his eyes to the ceiling and trying to keep the tears from running down his cheeks. He missed her more than words could say, and he couldn't seem to be busy enough to not miss her.

He turned to look at the seat, imagining her in it, and he was scared when the image seemed to waver. Fingers shaking, he grabbed the wallet from the console and opened it, unfolding the picture inside. He had the one of the three of them in his office, but this picture was his personal favorite: Bones had been sitting on the sofa, Christine in her arms, her head bent. Both of his girls were smiling, and Bones' hair was loose around her face, gently tickling Christine.

He pressed the photo against the steering wheel, examining it. After she'd announced that she was pregnant, and they'd officially become a couple, he'd taken to decorating every surface in sight with pictures of them. Bones had quickly tired of the way he wanted to capture every moment, but he'd kept doing it anyways, knowing that he'd need it someday.

He just didn't know that day would come so soon.

_**Just close your eyes**_

_**Honey, here comes a lullaby**_

* * *

Flinn turned slowly in his chair, his eyes examining the folder in front of him. He'd gone over the details again and again, so he wasn't really reading the words. Instead, he'd subtly enjoy the view he had when he turned in exactly the right way.

After Booth had declined desk duty, Hacker had agreed to let Flinn use Booth's office: with conditions, of course. He had brought in his own file cabinet and had disrupted Booth's desk as little as possible, but he still felt a sense of possession over the office now. To say he enjoyed having it was an understatement; he'd gotten tired of his desk over the years and loved having his own space.

Meanwhile, he was slightly unnerved by the room. He'd made it his as much as he could, but the conditions made it clear that he couldn't completely erase Booth from the room. Although he'd moved stuff around, it was all still there, all still staring at him.

The room was littered with pictures. Some were in frames, some tacked to the wall, some lying loose. Although there were plenty of Booth and Parker, most seemed to be of Brennan. Brennan and Booth, sitting in a park. Brennan, her hands folded over her pregnant belly, her eyes focused on something distant. Brennan, her blue lab coat drawn tight, her hands gently examining the bones in front of her. One particular picture was of Brennan's pregnant belly, two pairs of hands gently folded over top of it. The pictures were intermingled with pictures of Christine, labeled in precise writing. Ultrasounds, pictures of her at one day, one week, a week and a day. It seemed that Booth had captured every second of every moment of her life, and although it was a sweet gesture in retrospect, it was beginning to get on Flinn's nerves.

Sighing, Flinn laid the folder open on the desk, looking up through the glass walls. To his surprise, he caught sight of Agent Booth, his movements tense and worried as he spoke to Lance Sweets. The psychologist had annoyed the hell out of Flinn, his efforts to protect Brennan quickly getting on his nerves. The more the case progressed, the guiltier she got: she'd run away. Her friends were details away from fabricating evidence. Her daughter was gone with her, and her husband...was here.

Leaning back, Flinn nodded at Lance and watched as Booth carefully twisted the knob to get in. His movements seemed routine, out of place considering that this was Flinn's office until he got back.

"Mr. Booth," Flinn nodded, his respect barely covering his disdain.

"Flinn," Booth said simply, and Flinn couldn't help but notice the lack of a title. He knew Booth was just giving him a taste of his own medicine, but Flinn couldn't help but feel a ripple of annoyance at his words.

"News?" Flinn asked. "Has Brennan contacted you?"

Booth tensed, and his answer was clear in his movement. It was possible that Booth was covering up for her, but somehow he doubted it - the pain written in every line of his face was too real, too...painful.

"No," Booth said simply, walking forward slowly. "I see Hacker gave you an upgrade."

Flinn raised his hands, gesturing at the office. "It's still yours, but we figured that if I worked here I might get a better insight into the case." He also got a better insight into Booth's life, of course, but he didn't mention that. He was sure Booth already knew.

Nodding, Booth traced his fingers along the edge of the desk, gently pulling a picture towards him. He examined it carefully, and Flinn watched the emotions flit across his face. His eyes softened, his hands trembled, his lips curved slightly upwards.

"I got her a lawyer," Booth said simply.

Flinn raised his eyebrows, confused. "A lawyer?"

"She's not guilty," Booth said, but his voice wasn't rushed. He sounded confident, as if he'd been at that murder, as if he knew. "It's a long shot, and I doubt she'll be coming back soon, but...Angela hired her for Bones. She figured that if Bones does come back anytime soon, a little bit of protection can't hurt."

Flinn leaned back, eyebrows furrowed, considering the consequences of the action. "You know this is going to make her look guiltier. If she's hiring a lawyer she's practically announcing it."

"She's not," he said again, confidently. "And she'd probably hate the idea. But it sure as hell makes me feel better."

Flinn nodded skeptically. "So why are you here, Mr. Booth?"

A smile curved his lips, genuine and slightly vengeful. "I've come for my office."

Flinn raised his eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

"I told Hacker I'd take the desk duty. I need a distraction. I could offer you advice about the case as well," he said carefully, "but I get the feeling you don't want it, so I won't." His hand traced the picture he held, before setting it back on the desk, leaving it facing Flinn. The picture was of the two of them, Booth's arms wrapped around Brennan. She was smiling at the camera...but he was smiling at her.

"I'll do anything to get her back," he said. "But not for you to throw her in jail. I'd rather she raise our daughter alone, rather spend my life missing her, than have her come back here just to go to jail."

Flinn sighed, standing up and grabbing his things – a folder, the filing cabinet, a cell phone that looks like it belongs in the 90's, a BlackBerry. "Have fun on desk duty," he said, his vengeful tone diluted by the bitterness of having lost the office.

Booth smiled slightly again, this time sadly. "I will."

* * *

He sits with his ankles crossed on the table, a book on his lap.

He knows that there is still surveillance watching him, and he's been careful, a model prisoner. He goes to work every morning and his students, although initially wary, now love him. He reads diligently, staying away from murder mysteries and fantasies, choosing instead to read books about topics that bore him, such as romance. He's even been careful about the internet, knowing that there is a possibility that they'll want to check his movements, just in case. His phone calls haven't been monitored for a long time, but he's even cautious about those.

He turns the page in the book, eyes skimming quickly before slowing down. He's smart enough to get the plot and the themes and the characters from the books he reads, but he doesn't actually read them. Instead, he simply looks them over before starting a new one.

The phone vibrates on his desk. It's a crappy phone, one he bought with his first paycheck, one easy to destroy. That is the reason he bought it, of course, but his excuse is that he thinks the internet should be for computers, not phones. Also, he'd probably end up taking any expensive cell phones apart.

Picking up the phone, he skims over the number before opening it. "Hello?"

"Everything's looking good on this end," the voice said gruffly.

"Good, good." He let his feet fall to the floor, turning away from the windows so that surveillance can't read his lips. "Have they discovered the video yet?" he asks, thinking about the clock, the ticking bomb which can explode with the press of a button. Honestly, Temperance's sudden departure had messed up his plan, but he was quickly building a new one.

"Not yet," the voice answered. "But I expect they will soon. We just received the tapes. I made someone else go through them. They're rookies...they're slow."

"Of course, of course!" He gives a slight laugh, even though the conversation isn't funny. "I'd speed up the process, though. The rest of the plan is based on them finding that tape."

"Yes sir," the voice says, crackling. "I'll call you with more news soon."

He doesn't say goodbye. He simply hangs up, knowing the man will take that as a sign to return to work. After all, he's given the man everything: a different source of income, a raise at his real job, even a freaking office. Of course, if it hadn't been for him, the man would still be stuck in his old position, in his old desk duty. But when the man had contacted him, offering an inside into the FBI, he'd taken little time to consider. Although almost everything was on the computer these days, the FBI had a tendency to keep actual files instead of digital ones, and there were certain details he had trouble getting to. Plus, the insider would be able to keep the federals off his back, and to keep his plan moving smoothly. Once he'd gotten the insider into a new position of higher power, it hadn't been long before he'd found himself almost free of suspicion, all the leads now pointing to Temperance.

Pelant smiled, his lips curving malignantly, the show of emotion almost revolting on his face.

He'd given Agent Flinn everything he'd ever wanted, and all he was asking for was that Temperance Brennan go to jail and he be protected under law for any future crimes. Was that really too much to ask for?

* * *

**Shocked? No? I was hoping for a cliffhanger but that was too much to ask for.**

**Reviews? Don't hate me... I did my best.**

**More good reviews = happier me = some sort of happiness in the next chapter.**

**P.S - the lyrics in this chapter were from 'Lullaby', by Nickelback. I've recently been going through my playlist for more songs that I think would do good in this story and this one certainly fit my guidelines.**


	5. One By One

**A/N: So here's the deal. I love this story and I love writing it, but tomorrow is the first day of June, and with it comes this great challenge called Camp NaNoWriMo, which includes writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I will keep writing this - because this is my guilty pleasure - but please don't hate me if there are even longer intervals between chapters.**

**I actually don't have a lot of Pelant + Flinn in this chapter, because they were annoying me so I grounded them. But I hope you enjoy either way :)**

**Disclaimer: One day I hope Hart Hanson will read this and realize what a genius I am and give me the show. But for now, I don't own it. Sorry. I know, I'm sad about it too.**

* * *

She did not like her new look.

Wrinkling her nose, Brennan spun slowly in front of the mirror. Her once-auburn hair was dyed a harsh black, her long locks cut short. Her eyes were a hazy brown because of the contacts, hidden behind layers and layers of makeup even when she took her glasses off. She was wearing a sundress, which didn't call attention to her at all, but she still felt so..._visible._

She tried to imagine what Booth would think of her. Being, well, Booth, he'd probably start off by being fake-happy. He'd smile and compliment her new look; he'd run his fingers through her short hair and stare deeply into her eyes. But something about him would be off, and eventually she'd get him to tell her the truth. Yes, her hair looked beautiful, but he missed the feeling of it slipping through his fingers. Yes, her eyes were a gorgeous brown, but it was the million shades of blue in her eyes that he really loved.

Christine gave a short wail from the room, and Brennan sighed slightly before walking in. Christine was in her car seat still, and it rocked slightly as she waved her hands. In one tiny fist she clutched a photo; one Brennan had been reluctant to give her. At first, when Christine had grasped the picture and pulled it out of her hands, she'd stifled a shout. With so few reminders of Booth, the last thing she needed was Christine ripping one. But to her surprise, she'd simply held it, her eyes wide with awe.

Brennan walked around the room, gently calming Christine before packing up her things. There were still six days until she had to meet up with Max. At first, he'd wanted to go with her right away, but Brennan had convinced him not to. She needed him to look innocent – he would be her one tie with Booth, after all. She was pacing herself, not wanting to arrive too early, and she found herself with too much time on her hands.

Running her hands through her hair (and again experiencing a slight shock at the sheer _shortness _of it), she picked up her things. Rearranging everything so she could safely carry out Christine, she turned her back on her first temporary home and headed back to the road in search of another.

* * *

"Max."

Booth stood at the threshold of his door, staring at the man just outside. He shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to another, feeling the stress and ache of the muscles in his shoulders and back. He'd promised himself that he was going to sleep on a bed tonight, only to come home and find himself sobbing by their bedroom door. So he'd slept on the couch, cramping his muscles in a vain effort to fit better.

It had been the doorbell that had first woke him up, and he'd ignored his pain and put on a brave face, expecting to see Flinn or someone from the Jeffersonian.

"What a surprise," he said hollowly, staring at Max. "Come on in."

Max shuffled in slowly, his eyes flicking around the room. Although he'd developed a certain kind of friendship with Booth long ago, there was still awkwardness around them when the subject of Bones came up. Both were extremely protective of her, and in instances like this, their ideas on how to protect her clashed. Booth knew that Max had made the right call this time, but that didn't mean he was happy about it.

Running a hand through his hair, Booth watched Max sit down awkwardly on the sofa. His eyes darted to the blanket but he didn't say a word about it, which slightly decreased the tension.

"I haven't seen her yet," Max started. "I know that's the first thing you're going to ask, but I haven't. She made me promise to stay away-"

Booth shushed him, and then strode around the room quickly. He checked the windows and the door, and once confident that no one outside was spying on them, he turned on the stereo and grabbed a piece of paper and pens from his office desk.

"So how are you, Max?" he asked nonchalantly as his hand scribbled over the paper: _You haven't seen her?_

"Alive," Max said sarcastically, his own hand moving quickly across the paper. _Not yet – have to stay away for 1 wk – I'm your informant from here on out_

Booth chuckled drily at Max's answer, trying to seem natural. His voice dropped a pitch as sadness filled his tone. "So, do you know where she is?" _What about after 1 wk?_

Max sighed, his voice heavy with grief. "No idea. I didn't want her to run. I wanted you two to work it out." _I meet her, you solve case, she comes home. We hide until you solve case. As long as__ possible __needed._

"Me too," Booth said, his voice strangled. He was no longer just pretending. He had wanted her to stay, as irrational as it was. He'd wanted them to solve the case together. He'd wanted them to work things out and he'd wanted everything to be happy-ever-after. But if she'd stayed, she would've gone to jail ... and that was more torture than he could handle.

_**This is a waiting for my thoughts**_

_**Waiting for my thoughts**_

"Well," Max coughed, finishing up a sentence and passing the note back to Booth. "I should be going. I just dropped by to say hi. I don't want to keep you from work." He gave Booth a sad little wink before standing up and leaving, closing the door softly behind him.

_I know places, _Booth read. _She won't be in crappy motels. She'll be in a safe place soon enough. I'll keep Christine healthy and I'll keep Temperance safe. Trust me. All you can do now is catch that son of a bitch._

Swallowing back tears, Booth stood up and proceeded to do just that.

_**My forgotten thoughts;**_

_**This broken bed is my humble offering**_

* * *

Okay, so he hadn't really thought there would be bugs in their house. He doubted Flinn would go that far, and anyways, he'd given up all the security footage. He knew Flinn would find everything he wanted in those tapes, so why would he record their house?

Okay, so he had reasons to record his conversations. But still. Booth had really put up the little show so that Max would be more comfortable there.

Or so he told himself as he walked through the Jeffersonian's doors. Although he was due at work in a mere half an hour, he had felt an inexplicable tug towards the place. A very specific tug, too: he needed to see her office.

Dodging as many familiar faces and awkward hello's as possible, Booth slipped in through the door. Her office was painfully familiar, with its organized files and soft couch. He ran his fingers over everything in sight before sitting down in front of her desk.

As he'd expected, some of the stuff was clearly missing. Her computer was in place, but the laptop she used was missing. Her things had clearly been rearranged, as if trying to fill empty spaces.

And yet, everything was still so...perfect. Her scarf still hung over her chair. Her phone still sat by the keyboard, an LED light flashing persistently. And her photos still stood proudly, each one poignant. Unlike Booth, who had taken pictures of everything and printed them all, Bones had been very specific with her pictures. She'd taken only the best of the best, and so each one was absolutely perfect.

There were only five. The first was of her family: she was fourteen, and she was proudly holding a science trophy. Her father stood at her left, her mother at her right; Russ was behind the three, his chin resting on top of Bones' head. Each family member had their own expression: Russ was clearly bored and used to the fanfare; Max had an accustomed pride in his eyes; Christine looked almost smug. And Bones looked...happy. As if she'd never been hurt before. Because she'd never been hurt before.

The second picture was of her and Angela. It had been taken little after their first case together, and already they looked like best of friends. Angela had a protective arm around her friend; Bones had a rare smile on her face. Booth felt a pang of guilt as he realized how this must be affecting Angela, and he silently vowed to talk to her later.

The third was of her and Booth. By the time this one had been taken, she was already heavily pregnant. It was Christmas, and the room was mainly dark, which created a beautiful effect. The lights of the Christmas tree and the candles played with the shadows across their faces. They sat on the couch, side by side, her head on his shoulder. Their hands were intertwined on her large belly, and they both looked so peacefully happy, it was bittersweet to see the picture now.

The fourth was of Booth and Christine. It had been taken the first night they'd come home with Christine. She was in Booth's arms, and he was smiling so widely it looked like his cheeks might crack. One tiny hand rested against his lapel, her pale skin contrasting against the black suit. The first time Booth had seen the picture on her desk, he'd picked her up and kissed her deeply, spinning her around.

"_What are you doing?" she'd laughed, clawing at his shoulders to get down._

"_I love you," he'd said, pressing kisses all over her face. "I love you so much." His chest was almost exploding with it, the happiness and joy and love and pure emotion that washed over him just by seeing that picture. A picture she'd thought special enough to frame. _

The fifth was almost insignificant. It was smaller than the rest and the quality was horrible, but it was there. She'd printed it off his phone and hadn't even complained about the pixels.

She was asleep, Christine curled up against her, both of them so painfully sweet and relaxed that he'd absolutely needed to take the picture. He'd gotten home late and he was tired and hungry, but just the sight had given him a feeling like no other.

He felt like he was _home._

_**One by one the knots we've tied **_

_**Will come undone...**_

* * *

There were six squinterns in the bone room.

Booth couldn't help but squeeze his eyes shut at the sight, wondering if he was hallucinating. But when he opened his eyes and they were still there, he had to face the truth: Hell was freezing over.

"What's going on here?" he shouted over their voices, and six astonished faces turned towards him.

"Agent Booth!" Daisy squeaked, stepping forward. " asked us all to come here and work on the case. She figured since we worked with , we would have at least some of her expertise."

"Yeah," Clark said. "Pursuit of truth and all that."

"She's innocent," Finn added, "We just have to find proof."

"No, no, no!" Arastoo cut in. "We can't work under the assumption that she's innocent – no offense, Agent Booth – we need to work unbiased."

"But she's innocent!"

It didn't take another word for the squinterns to begin bickering, morals and lessons arguing with each other. All of them chose a side, but all of them also understood both: on one hand, they had no desire to believe that their mentor, their role model, was a murderer. On the other hand, she had been the one to teach them that everything was possible, and to look at the facts before making decisions.

"Don't look like that," Cam said drily, her voice a whisper by Booth's ear. "You haven't been trying to get them to work all day."

Booth raised his eyebrows doubtfully as Cam began giving orders, dividing up the squinterns into jobs. Although he'd only been there for a couple of minutes, he had to admit that Cam handled them expertly: they each immediately scuttled off to do their jobs, leaving only Wendell and Fisher in the room. Both immediately began working as well – Wendell began explaining key points in the case to Fisher, who listened surprisingly well.

"Need anything, Seeley?" Cam asked tersely. Once upon a time, it had been almost an insult to have Cam call him Seeley (which was why, when she did, he called her Camille). But the way she said it today – with so much respect and friendly love – made him feel almost better, instead of worse.

"Just passing by," he said absentmindedly, watching the squinterns. "You really think this is going to work?"

"What, 's interns?" Cam looked over her shoulder at Wendell and Fisher, who were clearly paying close attention to their every word. She gently pulled Booth out of the room before answering. "I really don't know. I think it's the best plan I have, however crappy it may be. With any luck, they'll sort themselves up. I'm assuming Brennan wanted to leave behind a legacy with them."

Booth nodded. "But do you think it'll work?"

Cam sighed. "No. I can have them do their best work, but no one compares to her. We all know that."

Booth nodded again, then turned to Cam. "But you know who could do this job much better than all of them combined. Not as good as her, but still much better."

Cam paused, her eyes glazing as she went through a mental inventory, her eyebrows furrowing at Booth's matter-of-fact expression. All of a sudden, it all cleared up and she shook her head. "No, Seeley! You just got rehired. This is not going to work."

"It has to," he said. "You know as well as I do that it has to. Sweets can even give us a hand. C'mon," he almost begged.

Cam searched his face, hoping for some sort of hesitation, no matter how little. But every line of Booth's face was set in determination, his plan already sewing itself together in his mind.

"Fine," Cam sighed. "But I didn't hear a word. And keep in mind – anything goes wrong and you'll have a hell of a time getting work again."

"I know," Booth said. "But when have things ever been easy for us?"

* * *

Angela stared at the tapes in front of her, her mouth set in a tiny little 'o'. She knew the implications of what she was seeing, but she was having trouble creating a coherent thought.

On one side, she knew what she wanted to do, what she almost desperately _needed _to do. She needed to tell Booth. She needed to get this to the FBI. She needed people to turn their sights away from Brennan and towards Pelant.

On the other hand, that's what he expected her to do. She needed to do what he didn't expect her to do – but what was that? Hide the tapes? No, Booth deserved to know; he might even be in danger now. Destroy the tapes? That would be worse. But what else was there to do?

She closed her eyes, a desperate tear slipping out from underneath and rolling down her cheek. She needed advice. She needed Brennan to be rational and right and to tell her what to do, because she was so lost.

But Brennan was gone. Flinn and the FBI were working against them. And this wouldn't help, as much as she wanted to believe it would. So, straightening her shoulders, Angela took one last look at the video – Pelant's eyes, dark and unforgiving, that violent smile across his face, such a stark difference to the beauty of Christine's room – before turning it off and taking the tape out, and resolutely heading off to find Booth.

* * *

Brennan drove into the motel parking lot, her eyes drooping with sleep. The motel looked only slightly better than the previous one – at least all the letters were lit up. She went through the motions of settling them down. She asked for the cheapest room and was handed a key; she sanitized and cleaned the room up as well as she could; she rearranged the furniture so Christine could be close by.

Finally, she sat down on the bed and turned on an old looking radio, twisting and turning the knob until she found a soft song, and settled down on the bed with Christine in her car seat beside her. She rested her hand on Christine's belly, gently rubbing the soft fabric, finding sweet comfort in the tiny hands that grasped at her wrists and fingers.

_**Don't you dare look out your window**_

_**Darling everything's on fire**_

Brennan rolled over, staring at the clock, compartmentalizing. Tomorrow she would move on, she would look for a new place to stay, she would get one step closer to her father. Tomorrow she would go out shopping for new clothes and more food. Tomorrow she would avoid police and stay far away from populated areas.

Today she would sleep and let her dreams carry her home.

_**Just close your eyes**_

_**The sun is going down**_

_**You'll be alright**_

_**No one can hurt you now**_

_**Come morning light**_

_**You and I'll be safe and sound**_

* * *

Booth's nerves were frayed, his hands tightening into and out of fists. He wanted to punch someone. No, he wanted to punch _him._

He watched Pelant walk across his room, switch the clocks. What was the other clock? Had being heartbroken saved his life? And what the _hell _was Pelant doing in Christine's room?

"I won't show it to Flinn," Booth said through a clenched jaw, looking up at Angela's worried face. "I'll look through the rest of the footage. And I'll figure out what the hell that clock is."

Angela nodded. "Okay. Anything else you need me to do?"

Booth looked up, watching Sweets enter his office. "You called?"

His eyes darted between the two. Angela, who had been so supportive of the two of them long before they'd even gotten together. Sweets, who thought it was his life's duty to tell them how to live their lives right and yet, had managed to keep them together somehow. The two of them had somehow managed to help him and Bones beat the odds. He owed them everything.

And he was about to owe them more.

He closed his eyes and opened them, making sure no one outside was paying close attention to them. "Here's the deal," he said urgently. "The squinterns aren't going to be of much help – no offense, Sweets. They're good and all, but we're missing part of the team."

Sweets still looked confused, but Angela's jaw dropped. "Oh, Booth," she sighed. "You can't possibly be thinking of something so... impossible."

"I am," Booth said resolutely. "And I need your help – especially you, Sweets. No matter how much we put our brains together, we all know there's only one person who can think almost exactly like Brennan. There's only one person who can give us her perspective of everything."

Booth stood up, his determination clear in every gesture. "Sweets, prepare a psychological report. Angela, prepare the lab." He raised his chin, resolute. "Tomorrow, we're going to find a way to get Zach back on the team."

* * *

**I adore Zach. Naturally he had to play a role in this. Hell, I'm half considering bringing back Vincent as a miracle, or something. But that would be overkill.**

**SONGS: "From the Ground Up", by Sleeping At Last; "Moral Panic", by Y La Bamba; "Safe And Sound", by Taylor Swift (another guilty pleasure of mine)**


	6. Meant to be Free

**This chapter is brought to you by the loser who does nothing over the weekend. Or Friday night, for that matter.**

**DISCLAIMER: In case you thought otherwise...no, I do not own Bones.**

* * *

Flinn looked around the examination room curiously, back straight and confident. He didn't believe it at first when he got Booth's call, to attend the meeting that they were having with the loony bin's staff: they wanted Zack to help them with the case.

To say that was a long shot was understating things. Flinn knew with a certainty that their plan wouldn't work, no matter how much they'd thought it through. After all, he already knew what his decision was. Booth would lay down whatever crappy case he'd made up. With any luck the psychiatric team would turn him down within the first few seconds. But even if he somehow managed to convince them, Flinn had already decided that Zack wasn't going to be allowed to contribute to the case. So they were working in vain, either way.

Actually, Flinn had never heard of Zack before, but he'd called Pelant with the development the minute he heard of it.

"Get rid of him," Pelant had said coldly, his only response to the development. So naturally, it had been his job to figure out exactly who Zack was and why he was so important.

He was a little surprised to see who Zack was. The fact that that kind of guy had been working with just furthered the case to a whole new level. He smirked, taking a sick kind of joy in ruining Seeley's day.

He sat down confidently in the seat marked with his name, shuffling around papers to try to look official. The staff talked amongst themselves, and the group of people working on the case cluttered in the audience.

He looked over them, knowing exactly who was who and, for the most part, who was doing what. Zach, the one 'on trial', was sitting in his chair, nodding as the others talked to him. Flinn had seen pictures of him and was surprised by the lack of scruffiness. The hair which had been long and untamed in the pictures was cut short, his clothes were flawless. Clearly he was trying to make a good impression on the judges.

Meanwhile, the Jeffersonian team – or the 'Squint Squad', as they were more popularly known around the FBI – were working around him, each giving their own advice. , the 'artsy' woman in the lab, was fussing over Zach's bowtie and hair. Lance Sweets, the psychologist, was giving advice on how to act. And Booth was simply sitting beside Zach, rubbing his forehead as he stared down at the phone.

The director cleared his throat. Everyone shuffled over to their seats and Flinn shuffled his papers one last time, straightening his shoulders, knowing how this was going to go.

"Let us begin," the director started. "Zach Addy, please stand up-"

The door burst open and a much disheveled man rushed in. A tie was straightened, the collar of a jacket pulled to its correct place, and the man looked up at the crowd.

"Sorry," Hacker said. "Traffic."

Hacker strode across the floor, plunking himself down next to Flinn. To his surprise, the directors didn't look that annoyed by the interruption – instead, they looked oddly pleased to see him there.

Flinn shifted in his seat, feeling his throat close up. To say that the tables had turned was a serious understatement. He had two choices: he could go through with his plan. If he did, Hacker was bound to be extremely pissed off, because the pride in Hacker's eyes was evident when he looked at the Squint Squad. Hell, he could even be demoted. Then he'd be off the case and Pelant would kill him because of what he knew.

His second choice was to scrap the plan. He'd allow Zach Addy onto the case. Hacker would be happy and would maybe even give him a raise. And Pelant...well, Pelant would deal, right?

Ha, there was a joke. Pelant was going to kill him. Either way, he was dead.

He watched Booth's lips move as he started off the case. He described the evidence, the victim, and the suspects. To Flinn's surprise, he didn't completely deny Brennan's possible involvement. Instead, he described everything possible. He talked about Pelant's past and personality as well, but he also admitted that had a possible link to the case.

Finally, the directors asked for Zach's connection. Booth's description was concise: Zach had been personally trained by . He had her rationality traits, thus making him unbiased. He was smarter than any of the other forensic anthropology interns, who were currently having troubles with the case.

Flinn raised his eyebrows as Zach stated his certifications, and then stumbled over an apology. "I am truly sorry about what I did. I regret it incredibly." His apology was clearly forced, but there was sympathy in his eyes that made it look somewhat...real.

The directors spoke amongst themselves, the squint squad congratulated themselves. Hacker gave the group a thumbs up, watching Flinn from the corner of his eye. Flinn gulped, trying to think of a way out.

The director cleared his throat, calling the room into order. Standing up, he looked over the tiny crowd. "The board of directors have made their decision," he said, tall and confident. "Zach Addy will be released from prison to work on this case."

There was a collective sigh of happiness, and the director smacked a wooden hammer down. "We have some conditions. First, Zach Addy will be under constant supervision while working at the lab. He will be under the supervision of Seeley Booth or Jack Hodgins at all times. He will be asked to return the moment his case is complete. He will be brought back if he does anything to misinterpret the case."

The director looked at Zach directly, his eyes intense. "If any one of these rules are broken, they will not be grounds to be reinstated, they will be grounds for arrest. Zach Addy will go to jail."

The director stepped back slightly. "One last condition. He will only be allowed to work on the case if Agent Flinn allows him to."

Eleven pairs of eyes turned to look at Flinn. He was used to being looked at and had become an excellent actor in his years. He looked calm and collected on the outside, but on the inside he could feel his heart pulsing at a million beats a minute.

He watched as Hacker wrote down a word on the corner of his page: "yes". He didn't need clarification to know what it meant. He had no doubt that Hacker believed Zach would be a great addition to the team.

_That's my problem, _Flinn thought ironically. _He gets on the team, he catches Pelant. The question is, how long will it take? Is there enough time for Pelant to kill him, or will he get caught first?_

He went over his options again. He tried to think of a way out. He closed his eyes and opened them, blinked rhythmically. But there was no way.

No. Freaking. Way.

Flinn licked his lips and nodded. "On behalf of the FBI, I would like to invite Zach Addy to join the case of Ethan Sawyer, on the grounds that he is the most qualified person we know to solve the case."

* * *

The celebration was quick and short at the loony bin. Angela helped Zach pack up the few things he had and they drove to Hodgins' and Angela's place, where the celebration became much more boisterous.

After a couple of phone calls, they found themselves with a pretty good party. The squints had come down from the lab, and Cam had given them the rest of the day off. There was pizza and beer and loud, spontaneous laughter.

Booth leaned back on the couch, tilting his head. It was true: this was the reunion that everyone wanted to have with Zach. This was perfect.

Except that she wasn't there.

It didn't surprise anyone that he wasn't exactly the life of the party. After all, they knew how he felt about the entire case, and they'd been kind to him. He'd done his best to not bring anyone down – he wasn't exactly cheerful, but chose to be quiet.

He missed her. He could imagine exactly how she'd react to Zach's reappearance. She'd be ecstatic, would lose her usual dignity and react the way 'normal' people would. He could imagine the way the happiness would not only be directed to Zach. He knew she'd spend the rest of the night talking and laughing and forgetting herself. And when they went home, exhausted after at least half an hour trying to get Christine to sleep, she'd curl up next to him and fall asleep after a quiet goodnight, innocent in sleep.

He shifted, thinking back to when they'd been waiting for Flinn's verdict. At first thought, Flinn had seemed calm, collected. He hadn't seemed overjoyed at asking Zach to join the team, and Booth smirked at that thought. He wasn't an idiot. Upon hearing that Zach's release was dependent on Flinn, Booth had called up Hacker and explained the situation. Hacker had talked to Cullen, who'd granted him the permission to go to the hearing. It pained Booth to have to say the things he did – talk about the relationship Hacker had once had with _her _– but it was necessary, so he had. And Hacker had taken him for his word, going to the hearing because he wanted Bones back too. Not in the same way Booth did – never in the same way Booth did – but certainly back.

If something like this had happened before he'd met Bones, and before she'd imparted so much wisdom upon him, he'd never have noticed. But he had met Bones, and in past cases, when she'd gone ahead and drawn conclusions, he'd asked for explanations.

It had been in the way Flinn swallowed dryly, in the way his eyes shifted, in the way he moved so slightly to one side. Flinn had been uncomfortable, unsure. He'd licked his lips before he gave his answer.

They'd made him flinch. But why was he so worried about Zach working on the case? Sure, he knew some things. Flinn hated them. He hated that Booth kept trying to interfere in the case. He hated that Bones had run and that he couldn't get her into jail.

But, why so uncomfortable?

"Hey Booth!" Clarke walked over, holding out a beer to him. "Three cheers for the g-man!"

Booth gave a small chuckle, trying to brighten up for their sake. "Thanks," he smiled, popping open the beer and taking a small sip. He winced at the slight burn of alcohol and the pain in his chest as he imagined drinking beer with _her._

"Look, man," Clarke said, shaking his beer slightly. "You know Zach's going to do great at figuring out the case. From what I heard, all we need to give him is an hour and he'll have it solved." He chuckled slightly, his tone clearly disbelieving. "We'll have back in no time."

Booth smiled. Even through all his pain, he understood that Clarke was right. This was the best chance he had at getting her back.

And getting her back was all that mattered.

He picked up on the first ring. "Hello?"

"I allowed him into the case."

Pelant closed his eyes, and then opened them slowly, waiting. He never spoke. He knew better.

"Hacker was there. If I had denied Zach I would've been demoted for incompetency. I can only help you if I'm on the case."

He rubbed a hand over his forehead and tried not to sigh or give any other outward sign that he was even there. Of course the agent had screwed it up. He wasn't half as smart as he was. Hell, the agent wasn't half as smart as Temperance Brennan was.

He smirked. Most people seemed to think the two were at the same level – or at least, close. But he knew better. Dr. Temperance Brennan had not been able to solve his murder. She had not been able to put him in jail. The only smart thing she'd done, in his opinion, was run.

"I'm very sorry," the voice said gruffly, with only an undertone of true apology. The whole sentence reeked with fear. "I will do my best to get Zack Addy off the case. One tiny slip-up and I'll throw him back into the institution."

Except Pelant knew better. Pelant knew the implications Flinn, in his desperation, had missed. Zach was to be accompanied at all times, so there would be no loophole for Pelant to slip in and kill him. Zach, unlike Temperance Brennan, was not weighed down by emotional burdens. Temperance had slipped up in her rational ways. She'd fallen in love. She had a child. She had a family.

Zach did not.

Flinn was looking for a slip-up, but there would be no slip-up. Zach would tell the truth even if it got Temperance thrown in jail. The kid had barely been able to apologize. He wouldn't lie. He wouldn't cover up evidence. He was unburdened.

Just like Pelant.

* * *

She closed her eyes to block out her image, praying that when she opened them, the old her would be back.

She opened her eyes. She wasn't.

Brennan ran a hand through her midnight ebony hair, praying for roots. Other woman complained about them, spent hundreds upon hundreds of dollars to keep them hidden. And yet here she was, being unique as always. Praying for them (metaphorically).

She was having trouble adjusting to her new look. It wasn't that she didn't like it. Well, okay, that was part of it. The main reason she hated it was because she hadn't seen his reaction to it. If she had, she'd be okay with it. She knew he loved her hair – almost every time he saw her, one of the first things he'd do is run his fingers through it, lean down and sniff it. He missed that – the way he would casually lean over and just _be _with her.

Christine whined from the other room, and she sighed, trying to adjust to the rest of her look. Other than her hair, she was still trying to get accustomed to: glasses, brown contacts, ebony black dress (although she'd been careful to choose one that looked very, very different to the one Roxy wore), hiking boots.

Huffing, she shuffled around the room and finished grabbing her things before heading out the door. Christine settled down quickly, her tiny fists clenching and unclenching. One getting everything into her car, she pulled onto the freeway.

She knew there was a supermarket ten minutes away, and every minute that ticked by freaked her out. She was scared of being in public, even though it had only been three days since she had left. Her face was still everywhere, notices posted about the famous author and her young child.

She pulled into the supermarket carefully, being so cautious she felt like a new driver again. She parked and, acting as casual as she could, pulled Christine from her seat and rested her on her hip. She walked to the front doors in a pace as normal as she could muster, one arm tightly held around her daughter and her free hand gripping the strap of her purse tightly.

She grabbed a cart and loaded Christine in. Although her daughter didn't need an extreme makeover, she had made a couple of changes to Christine. She was wearing a ridiculously childish and feminine outfit (pink with bears on it, which had made her wrinkle her nose in disgust), with a tiny purple sunhat and a pretty little pair of glasses.

She moved through the supermarket at a pace that looked normal but felt rushed. She grabbed food, a couple of new toys for Christine, make-up. It was hard to decide what she needed and what she wanted, and, remembering how little money she had to spend, she sadly put back the toys she'd found.

The worst part, she knew, was paying. She was an excellent actress, however, so she ran through her story as she got closer to the cashier: she was a young mother travelling to go meet her husband. They were moving to L.A, and he'd gone ahead to get things prepared. Her name was Emily (simple), and her daughter's name was Jennifer (also simple), although she called her Jenny. She'd decided that she'd choose different names after a certain radius, so that there wouldn't be any awkward explaining to do if she ran into a familiar face.

She looked around, trying to find a cashier who looked disinterested. Unfortunately, it was mid-morning, there was low traffic, and only two were open: one with a young man who was looking at her very interestedly, and one with an old lady who looked grandmotherly.

_Damn. _She pushed her cart towards the old lady. She had no doubt the lady would ask her a million questions, but it was easier than trying to choose whether to flirt with or turn down the man (she had very bad experience with flirting, and even if she was good at it, she had a burning sensation in her stomach at just the thought of flirting with someone who wasn't Booth).

"Good morning!" the old lady said brightly. "And how are you today? What a beautiful daughter!"

"Thank you," Brennan smiled politely, loading her things.

"What's her name?"

Brennan caught her tongue just in time. "Jenny. It's short for Jennifer."

The lady grinned again, and then quieted down as she focused on her work. Brennan looked around idly, trying not to be scared when another lady pulled up behind her. She let her eyes wander, trying not to let them dart like they wanted to.

"Isn't it a shame?" the lady behind her said, clucking her tongue as she looked up at a TV.

Brennan startled slightly, looking up at the TV as well. It was a news broadcast, a man talking urgently over the headlines which scrolled below him.

In the corner of the screen was a picture of her.

"Although Temperance Brennan is the main suspect," the man was saying, "a man named Christopher Pelant has been accused by some to be framing her. Christopher Pelant was a main suspect in the murder of Ezra Crane. He was recently released from house arrest and is currently working. He was dismissed as a suspect when leads began to point to Temperance Brennan, but Agent Booth maintains that he is a lead that should be followed. Agent Booth is the father of Temperance Brennan's daughter, Christine. Temperance and her daughter are currently missing. If you have any information about their whereabouts, please call this number."

A number flashed at the bottom of the screen, and the woman clucked again, leaning towards the cashier. "Think she's guilty, Edna?"

The lady tilted her head. "She has a daughter. I can't imagine a mother who would be so...cold."

Brennan shifted uncomfortably, and the lady turned towards her. "What about you?"

Brennan shrugged. "I think she's innocent. Did you hear about the other murder, the one the other man committed? I wouldn't put it past him to have done this as well."

The lady raised her eyebrows skeptically, and Brennan took a quick glance over. Her eyes were heavily made up, her hair held in a high ponytail, her shorts barely long enough to be considered shorts. She snapped her gum and leaned forward on the cart.

"I think she's guilty," the lady said. "Those scientist people. I wouldn't put it past her."

Brennan shifted again, nervous.

"Cute kid," the lady said. "Got a name?"

"Jenny," Brennan smiled, reaching down to grasp her daughter's hand.

"Nice," the lady said. "See, you're a mother. Wouldn't ya kill for her?"

Brennan tilted her head, at first only pretending to deliberate. On first instinct she knew her answer immediately: yes. She remembered picking up Booth's gun and shooting Pam. She remembered the feel of his arms around her and the weight of Christine in her arms. She remembered falling asleep with the two of them near her, knowing she was safe. Knowing she was loved.

But before the words could leave her mouth, she remembered a previous encounter with Finn. She had a genuine curiosity, not minced by social conventions the way everyone else's questions were. She'd asked the first, clear question she could think of.

"_Did you murder your stepfather, ?"_

"_No, ma'am; I did not."_

"_What stopped you?"_

"_I read a paper you wrote. 'Post mortem dismemberment recovery analysis'. I knew no matter how careful I was, I'd never get away with killing him, at least not with y'all around."_

She was rational by nature. As much as she wanted to believe that she would kill for Christine, kill for Booth, kill for her family...she wouldn't. She couldn't. She would fight for them and she would die for them, but she would not kill for them.

But she had an appearance to keep up with now. She had to be the caring mother. She had to be loving, she had to be kind.

She had to be different.

"I think I would," she said slowly, stammering, before becoming more confident. "Yes, I think I would."


	7. Spinning 'Round

**A/N: Anyone else hear the good news? Bones is back on September 17th! 91 days, guys!**

* * *

The squints were not happy about Zach.

Booth leaned back, watching as the squinterns gathered around the autopsy table. The tension in the air could be cut by a knife, all of them angry with at least another person.

It had taken nearly an hour for them to decide how to proceed now that they had Zach with them. He'd spent the night at Hodgins' house – the room Hodgins had refused to move into now belonging to its rightful owner – and looked oddly normal; as if nothing had changed in the years he'd been gone. Cam had already had a plan in place, one she'd relayed immediately. "Zach will begin a new investigation," she'd decided. "He will disregard any and all evidence we've assembled and start from scratch."

"What?" Booth – and half the squinterns – had disagreed, although not all for the same reason. Most of the squinterns seemed pissed at the thought that all their hard work was going down the drain, but Booth was angry for a completely different reason. "We don't have time to re-evaluate everything! We need to find her!"

"My lab, my rules," Cam said simply. "Look, I know is innocent. But if this case goes to court, we need it to be solid. We go up there and tell them Zach built on what she'd already determined; the jury convicts her in a second. But we go up there and Zach tells them exactly what she knew more – _after _examining the bones himself – and the jury gains the doubt they need to release her. So you let me handle things my way unless you want to never see her again."

Booth had grumbled, clearly not happy with the plan, but had let them continue. He didn't want Cam mad at him – as much as he hated what was happening, he knew Cam would kick him off the case if he tried to interfere. He'd wandered around the Jeffersonian, leaving the squinterns to do their thing. He'd spent some time trying to help Angela decode the spit triangle, only to become deeply annoyed and five seconds away from having to be physically restrained from destroying Angela's office. He'd spent some time poking at gross things in Hodgins' office and had been kicked out of Cam's when he began to ask too many questions.

In the end, he'd ended up here again. He sat on her couch, chewing idly on a piece of gum, staring at the spot on the roof where she'd hung mistletoe that one Christmas. It had been their second kiss, and it had reignited that tiny part of him which he'd been restraining for years. How many had it been since he'd kissed her before that – three, four? He'd missed her taste, the way she moved, the way she felt, so warm in his arms.

After that it would be another two years before he kissed her again, begging that she would feel the way he did, begging that she would allow herself to _feel. _She would push him away, and they would go on their separate paths, and he would lie to himself for more than a year, telling himself he loved Hannah when, in truth, she was just a replacement for _her._

And then, Vincent would die. Vincent would die, and she would break down, but she would not run away like he thought she would. She would crawl into his arms, and even though the grief was drawing them both down, there would be something...more.

Booth stretched his legs, rubbing his hands over his face. After that there would be no more stolen kisses, no more nights dreaming of her lips, her eyes, her hair. After that, he would go to bed and have _her _in his arms. No more dreaming because his dream was a reality. And reality was so, so _freaking _better than any dream.

Angela poked her head in the door, clearing her throat. "I think Cam needs your help restraining the squinterns," she chuckled, clearly amused at whatever was going on in the autopsy room.

Huffing, Booth ambled over to the room, finding the squinterns seconds away from strangling each other. Zach was clearly determined, not bothering to be unnerved by the tension around him, still working and talking about his findings. Daisy looked seconds away from breaking down into tears. Finn had his arms crossed, lips pressed tightly together in anger. Clarke and Fisher looked pleased with the way Zach was handling things, and Wendell and Aristoo looked out of place, as if they didn't know what side to take.

Booth smiled slightly, amused. Cam was standing by the door, eyes narrowed. She didn't look quite angry – she looked more as if she felt the need to be angry, but was too busy trying not to laugh.

"What's up?" Booth asked, watching them work – or argue, more correctly.

"Zach's still got it," Cam broke down and chuckled. "He's taken about ten minutes to find out what it took the rest of them a week. And as if that's not enough..." she quieted down, suddenly serious. "The evidence keeps pointing to her, of course."

Booth clenched his jaw, the hilarity gone from the situation. He turned on his heel and walked out, brimming with anger.

Damn it! He knew this was going to happen. He'd always known the evidence would keep pointing to Brennan. He knew Pelant had slipped up somewhere, but that didn't matter right now. What mattered was keeping all the evidence away from Flinn. The moment he got a hold of the evidence, Caroline would be able to build a solid case. She wouldn't, of course. Caroline complained and huffed and puffed about everything the Jeffersonian did, but Booth knew with certainty that she would do everything to prevent Brennan from going to jail.

Turning on his heel, Booth walked back into the autopsy room. Hostility spilled off of him in buckets, and the squinterns immediately paused, all suddenly scared.

Except for Zach, of course. He continued cataloguing and examining, oblivious to the fear in the rest of the room.

"Listen up!" Booth called, the tension in his voice clear. "I don't care if you guys agree with what Zach is doing. I don't care if you guys completely disagree with what Zach is doing. You guys are going to shut up and let him work. If that doesn't happen, we're never going to catch Pelant and I'll kill you all." Clenching his jaw again, Booth strode out of the room.

And Cam, who had stood by the door, who had listened to him threatened her workers, didn't say a word. For some reason, whatever it may be...she agreed with him.

* * *

Things were moving...well.

Booth sighed again, leaning back against Angela's couch. Beside him, Angela massaged her temples and tried to think. Although Zach and the squinterns were doing their best, they hadn't progressed half as much as they'd wanted to. Hodgins had run out of particulates to examine and was bored out of his mind – made clear by the fact that he was currently stretched out on the floor in front of Angela and Booth, staring at the ceiling. Cam spent most of her time trying to make the squinterns work faster, and when she wasn't she was trying to get the rest of the team working on different cases.

The cases that had come in were not high priority to any of them. The most grisly one paled in comparison to what they'd seen Pelant do, and they'd solved it in no time. The rest of the cases were backseat to Pelant's case, which only Cam seemed to hate. She had taken over Brennan's rational demeanour and decided how they should act. She had nothing against the team working hard on the Pelant case, but she needed to keep up the Jeffersonian's reputation, and that was hard to do when they didn't even have time to solve their cases.

It wasn't as if they wanted to try, either. Without Booth and Brennan, their dynamic duo, it seemed almost boring to work with the FBI. They didn't go out onto the field. They didn't have an agent constantly around, constantly asking for more clues. They took the body and the clues, they examined, they sent the stuff back to the FBI.

Cam dragged herself into Angela's office, sitting down on the floor beside Hodgins. She stared at the triangle on the wall, wishing it would decode itself. Angela had reached a dead end with the books, although she had drawn everything she could out of them. She'd even spent hours scanning them all into the computer, cross-referencing everything. In the end, it hadn't worked: the books were all over the map, even though certain things did connect. Plot, characters, general themes...although some connected, none were absolutely incriminating, and none helped solve the triangle.

"I wish we knew what it did," Booth muttered, stretching his arms over his head. "What could it do?"

"It's a code, man," Hodgins answered. "It doesn't do anything. It says something."

"We don't know that." Angela shook her head, trying to clear it. "We have no idea what this could be. They are connected, we know they're connected. Those books and that code..."

Cam nodded. The library books had something to do with it, and they knew it, even if they'd run into a dead end. But what was the point of looking there? There had to be something else that would lead them to the solution, not just those books. "Isn't there anything else we can focus on?" Cam asked. "Anything else he did?"

They all sighed.

"Maybe Sweets or Caroline can help us," Booth mused. "They must have some idea of what's going on."

"Or," a voice from the door added, "I could be of some help."

Four heads turned towards the door. Four spines already chilled at just the voice.

Flinn.

* * *

"Agent Flinn!" Angela spluttered, hands tightening on the remote. She wanted to change the screen but she knew he'd already seen it, and she didn't want to any more incriminating than it already was.

"What is this, anyway?" he asked, ignoring the way all four of the people in the room scrambled to their feet and tried to disguise what was going on.

"It's a puzzle," Booth said immediately, his voice not even close to betraying the truth. "My friend sent it to me by e-mail the other day; he was wondering if I could figure it out. Apparently it's some big mystery." Swallowing, he prayed that Flinn hadn't been around long enough to hear about the books.

"Oh." Flinn seemed to believe Booth, although he knew it was possible that the agent was a really good liar as well. "So am I going to be of any assistance?"

"I think your help would be of better use in the Ethan Sawyer case, Agent Flinn," Cam said simply, her voice barely covering the rage underneath.

Flinn shrugged. "I came to see how Zach is doing."

"He's doing great," Hodgins said cheerily, and it was only half false. Hodgins had been the happiest at having Zach back, so it was only natural that he made it sound the most real.

Flinn nodded, skepticism written in every line of his face. "Good," he said curtly. "Then I should be expecting more evidence soon?"

"Of course." Booth's posture spoke more than his words, making it clear that he was the one in charge in this lab.

Flinn nodded slowly before turning away, walking out the door in a gait that struggled to match Booth's. Cam couldn't help but smile a little at that – Flinn's crappy attempt at replacing Booth, a feat that was near-impossible.

They barely had time to breathe, however, before Clarke burst in, his chest heaving and his eyes wide, hair ruffled. Finn ran after him, arriving seconds later and moving barely in time to avoid Fisher barreling into him.

"We've got news," Clarke huffed out.

"What kind?" Booth asked, stepping forward, breathing shallowly and trying to suppress the hope that escalated in his chest.

Clarke smiled widely. "The very good kind."


	8. What Can't We Face

**A/N - Sorry this took so long to update. All my files got deleted. Lesson=back up your documents.**

**I believe I owed you good news? This chapter's actually sort of angsty with the news. But still. Read on!**

**Also, I made up some of the technical stuff in this chapter. I'm no computer genius.**

**DISCLAIMER: You should know by now; but no, I do not own Bones. **

* * *

Clarke had gathered everyone in Brennan's office. He felt there was a sweet irony to the setting, and he wanted to make the announcement...special.

The squinterns were assembled on the floor, nervously squirming in anticipation. Hodgins, Angela, and Cam sat on the couch, twiddling their thumbs as they waited for Clarke to start. Booth sat on Brennan's chair, spinning faster and faster as the tension and anticipation in the room tightened and rose.

Zach strolled in, calm as may be. Although his demeanour was relaxed and calm, there was something sparkling in his eyes, putting everyone on edge.

Booth cleared his throat, the warning clear in the tone, and Zach hurried to the front of the room with Clarke.

"Here's the deal," Clarke began. "We were thinking about the code. Since Angela hasn't had much luck with figuring it out through the library books, we figured we could help by thinking of motive. What would Pelant need that code for?"

He turned slowly, looking at each person individually. "We've never dealt with someone like Pelant before. Gormogon's motive was the life experience – or so we've been told, we're not all exactly clear on his motive." Clarke shifted on his feet awkwardly, trying to ignore Zach's calm, collected posture. "The Gravedigger wanted money. Her motive was easy. And Broadski wanted his own personal justice."

Clarke shifted again, stomach tingling in anticipation. "The thing is, none of us really knows what Pelant's motive is. At first we thought he was doing something somewhat like Broadski – looking for justice, for publicity. But then he started actually messing with us. The barcode nearly broke Angela's computer. He mentioned Hodgins when he talked about the code in the spine. He killed Ethan Sawyer, who was 's friend. He's targeting us now."

Clarke looked around. "Now, we don't know why he's messing with us. We have theories but we don't know which one is true. But we do know this: he's our number-one suspect right now." Catching Booth's eye, he clarified further, "We know he's guilty. It's much easier to convict him of Ethan Sawyer. But his first two murders? He has an alibi. That ankle monitor is his alibi. But it's not a person. It's technology. And we need to know how to control it. We need to find out how he controlled it."

Zach held up a plastic bag with a tiny bone in it. "This is a stapes," Clarke said. "It's-"

"The smallest bone in the human body," Booth choked out. Clarke looked surprised, clearly not understanding how Booth knew this, but Cam gave him a stern look before throwing a cautious one in Booth's way. Booth looked stoic on the outside, but his fingers were curled into his palm, the skin red.

"Yes," Clarke said. "There's a mark on here we don't understand. Seen unaided, it looks like a nick. But we put it under a microscope, and there's something in there. A particle, maybe a marking, a code-"

Hodgins jumped up, grabbed the bag from Clarke's hand, and ran out.

Angela raised her eyebrows, amused. The rest of the squinterns stood up and walked out, leaving Booth, Cam, and Angela.

"I'll go back to the code," Angela shrugged.

"And I'll go back to my lab," Cam said, sounding pained. "Have stuff to do, Booth?"

"Of course!" Booth said, a fake cheer in his tone. "I have plenty to do."

The two looked at him skeptically before walking out of the office.

Booth leaned his forehead into his palms, breathing deeply and tunneling his fingers into his hair. He hadn't expected so much pain to come out of good news. It was such a tiny word, meant for a tiny bone. It wasn't even worth his time. But the word had buried under his skin,leaving a splinter in his heart.

_He was standing in their living room, his arm around her, their daughter in her arms. There were no thoughts of the case. No thoughts of the guilt he felt about not getting her to the hospital. No thoughts of the pain he felt at seeing her in pain._

_There was only happiness. A bright, blinding happiness that made his heart race and his chest tighten with love. There was nothing but joy that increased every time he looked down at Christine, every time he felt Bones' skin under his cheek. There was nothing but love, surrounding them, and he'd curled his fingers around her arm and pulled her closer, because he needed her, so much._

Breathing deeply, he stood up and walked out of the office, tracing the pictures again. He felt closer to her here, and he loved that. But he needed reality now.

He needed to find her.

* * *

"Dad."

Brennan stood in front of her car, Christine in her arms, bags surrounding her. Max took her all in, the way her hair stuck to her cheeks and neck, the slight shine on her forehead, the redness in her eyes that told him she had cried.

His heart raced, pain speeding it up. The father in him wanted nothing more than to take his daughter – and his granddaughter – into his arms and hold them close. The father in him wanted to give them the world, if it meant making them happy. The father in him knew what he could give them that was better than the world – the father in him knew that it would be so easy. So easy to just gather them into his car and take them to _him._

But the fugitive in him was stronger now. The fugitive in him hated that she still had that car – a car that he had rented but a car that could still be traced. The fugitive in him hated that she still looked way too much like herself – he'd wanted her to change way past her hair and eyes. The fugitive in him wanted Christine to look like a boy. She was still so young, it would be easy. Just blue clothes, toy cars. Although he knew Temperance would never go along with it, he wanted to try. The truth was, the rational Temperance _would _go along with it. But after being so long with Booth, he knew she would disagree. Booth would never allow his little princess to be dressed like a boy.

He reached forward, taking Christine out of Brennan's arms and placing her in the car seat. He took her suit cases and put them into the trunk, then walked around to the driver's side.

It was only once he got his door opened that he noticed his daughter was still standing by her car, her arms awkwardly curved, still prepared to hold Christine. Her eyes were blank, unfocused. She stared at a fixed point on the horizon, blinking occasionally, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

Max walked over carefully and gently. He wrapped his hands around her wrists and gently lowered her arms to her side, then brushed the hair out of her face. Her eyes shimmered with tears, and pain rose from the depths of her pupils.

"Hey," he said softly, wrapping his arms around her. Her arms rose stiffly to wrap around him, then gave a small squeeze before lowering.

"We have to go," she said, the supreme rationality covering the twisted hurt in her chest. "We have to go."

She pulled away, walking swiftly to the door and climbing in. He stared at her for a moment, placing his hands on his hips and looking up tiredly, before climbing in behind the steering wheel and driving them to the first safe house on his list.

* * *

Brennan shuffled around the small room, putting things in their place. After spending what felt like so much time in crappy hotel rooms, she was overjoyed to be in a place that felt like a home. Her father's friend's cottage was truly a home, with old-fashioned curtains and bedspreads. There was a homely kitchen, a cozy living room where her father was sleeping, and the hidden back room where she was. The room was disguised as a closet, and she had hardly believed it was there until she'd stepped into it. There was a large bed, a well-sized crib, and even a tiny bathroom.

Slowly lowering herself onto the bed, Brennan let herself think about the case. She knew the Jeffersonian was probably driving itself crazy to catch Pelant, but that didn't comfort her as much as she thought it would. She knew Pelant would be tough to catch and that made her more than nervous. It terrified her, actually. She had nightmares about the million possibilities. She got caught and went to prison. Christine was taken away from her. Pelant killed Booth. Pelant killed Christine.

Weird, she thought to herself, that not one of her nightmares was of Pelant killing her.

She curled up, turning to stare at the crib. Clearly the atmosphere had gotten to Christine as well, because she'd fallen asleep almost immediately and hadn't woken up. She'd spent the car ride mentally going over names. She loved the name Christine. It reminded her of dolphins and warm happiness and the kind of safety that came with a mother.

But Christine couldn't be known as Christine; not publically. So she thought of other names. Emily. Jennifer. Sophia. Emma. Katie. Her father had given her the suggestion of turning Christine into a boy, which had driven her crazy, but she'd agreed to it – partly. She'd begun to think of unisex names. Alexis. Riley. Aubrey. Cameron.

She rolled to stare at the ceiling, chuckling slightly. She imagined what Booth would say if she told him about what she was planning for Christine. The indignant look in his eyes was clear in her mind, and she knew she would laugh. Not out loud, of course. But she would. Booth was so perfect, so ideal, his vision of a family so amazing that it had startled her at first. Although her pregnancy had originally made her nervous, it hadn't taken long for that nervousness to wear off into something incredible. She imagined the things he'd described to her. He'd described days when they'd take Christine to parks and playgrounds; dinners as families; nights playing board games. He'd described a daughter who would grow up to be smart and knowledgeable like Brennan, but loving and instinctive like Booth.

She wanted that. She wanted that family life, that continuous routine. She wanted to fall asleep beside him every night and wake up curled around him. She wanted to know she was safe, every moment of the day, simply because she was with him. Not just with him. _With _him.

She curled up tighter, burying her head in her pillow. She missed him, so much. She missed the safety and the routine and the ever present, constant, insanely strong _love._

She didn't even notice she was crying until Christine gave a tiny, choked sob. Sitting up, she wiped her eyes and walked over to the crib, reaching in to adjust the blanket. Christine's eyelids fluttered, her fingers clenching before she relaxed into sleep again.

Brennan ran her fingers over the soft fabric of the blanket and the soft skin of Christine's cheek. Then, gently, she walked back to her bed, pulled back the covers, and let sleep carry her into her dreams.

* * *

Booth didn't go home that night.

He sat in his office, his desk lamp the only light in the entire floor of the building other than the occasional safety light on the walls, the blinking of the camera lights, the brightness of the exit sign.

He should've gone home. It was what everyone had told him to do. But he'd stayed in his office, because he just couldn't go home tonight. He preferred to stay in his office, working. Or so he told himself.

Hodgins hadn't finished his analysis of the bone, nor had he told anyone what he'd figured out so far. Angela had kept him up to date, but even Angela herself hadn't been told what was going on. Hodgins was being extremely cautious with the information, which led him to believe that the nick (or whatever it was) was a big deal.

Spreading his fingers over his desk, he shuffled his work over to the side so he could look at the Pelant files. He'd made sure Flinn had left before pulling them out, going over what Clarke had said in his mind.

What was Pelant's motive? He wasn't sure. There were certain things that Clarke had gotten right – for example, his target. Pelant was definitely going after the Jeffersonian. He knew a lot about them, which scared Booth to pieces. Not that Pelant knew him; he couldn't care less about that. He was scared for two reasons: Pelant knew that he only had to get to Bones to get to him, and he knew how to get to Bones.

He rubbed his temples. It was scary to think about Pelant getting to Bones. He had nightmares about it, and he'd wake up on the couch with a dry mouth and a racing heart. He'd dream that she would get caught by him. He would kill her. He would kill Christine.

He was terrified.

Stretching out his fingers, he looked through the folder. He knew only part of Pelant's motive. He also knew Pelant had gotten past the ankle monitor. He wanted to know how. It was the biggest mystery in his life right now – other than where Bones and Christine were, of course.

There was nothing in the folder that could help him. There was nothing in the paperwork that could help him. There was nothing, nothing that could help him.

He slammed the folder shut, the desk shuddering underneath his palm. It was nearly one in the morning. He had nothing to do. He had no way to save her. And it was driving him _insane._

As if on cue, his phone vibrated on his desk, the screen lighting up. Jumping slightly, he scrambled for the phone and answered it. "Hello?"

"You'd better get over here, Booth," Angela's voice crackled over the line. "We've got something for you."

* * *

"This," Hodgins declared, "is the triangle."

Booth's jaw dropped as he stared at the screen. The triangular saliva code covered one half of the screen, and on the other side was a close up of the nick. It was tiny, so tiny it was nearly impossible, but it was the triangle.

"How did he do that?" Cam asked, incredulous.

"A laser," Hodgins said, stifling the smile that was growing on his face. "There's this machine that's used to create computer chips that's extremely precise, and Pelant somehow got his hands on one. The laser has a diameter smaller than that of the point on a pin. All he'd have to do is input the information and it would create the pattern in the stapes."

"Why on the bone, though?"Angela mused, leaning back. "There has to be a reason. He knew we were going to find this."

Booth nodded, confused. Pelant wanted them to know he had this triangle, which was not good. It took away the sense of secrecy they had about the code and thrust them into a completely different situation, one where Pelant wanted them to know. They'd thought they had evidence he didn't know about. They were wrong.

Dropping his head onto his palms, Booth groaned. There went the last thing they had that Pelant didn't.

"That's not all, though," Hodgins said. "This bone? It's not Ethan Sawyer's."

A silence dropped heavily over the room, and Cam's jaw dropped.

"What do you mean?" she squeaked. "Was it from one of his past victims?"

"No," Hodgins said, and his voice cracked now. "Look, Pelant is a technological genius. I wouldn't put it past him to have changed the DNA somehow-"

"Whose is it, Hodgins?" Booth asked tersely.

He closed his eyes. "Clarke said it's most likely from an adult, definitely not a child. But there were particulates in the nick." He looked at Booth, a pained sympathy in his eyes. "Half of them were the fibers found in baby blankets. And half of them were fibers from a lab coat. Our lab coat."

Booth squeezed his eyes shut, breathing shallowly.

"It's a trick," Cam said. "If something had happened to them, Max would've told us. Pelant's probably just trying to freak us out. And anyways, the DNA hasn't come back."

He stood up, charging out of the lab without a backwards look, leaving Hodgins standing with his finding, unsure of what to think. He knew the bone wasn't Brennan's – it couldn't possibly be. He'd thought the triangle would cheer up Booth – that small piece of evidence that might take away his worry.

Clearly he was wrong.

* * *

Booth stood in his apartment, his hand rested on the doorknob to his room.

He had a million reasons not to go in there. Some were emotional – if he went in there, he would break. He would sob and cry and probably wouldn't get up for hours, exhausted. Some were rational – he knew Pelant had messed with the clock in his room, though he didn't know why, or what he'd done.

But all those reasons weren't enough to quell the longing he felt to walk in there. This was a room he'd built with her, a room specifically for them. This was a room he'd designed around her, around the things she wanted and needed. This was a room where he'd rubbed his palm across her stomach, and kissed her lips, and woken up wrapped around her. This was a room where he'd dragged himself out of bed to get his daughter to sleep, a room he'd dragged Bones into whenever she insisted on working, a room filled with so much love and adoration that even Angela couldn't bear to walk in there, her normally rebellious attitude towards the couple shrinking into a blush at the intimacy that covered every surface of the room.

His fingers clenched around the knob, dying to turn it, unable to let go. Huffing out a breath, he dragged his phone out of his pocket and dialed Angela's number.

"What is it?" she asked immediately. "Is everything okay? You just left."

"I'm going into our room," he said softly, his voice haunted.

"Your room?" Angela asked, confused. Understanding flooded her, and she nearly screamed into the phone. "Booth, the clock! We don't know what he did to it! Look, just back away. Hodgins will come pick you up and you can sleep at our house. It'll be okay, okay? Just talk to me," she begged.

But Booth couldn't hear her anymore. He could hear nothing but the soft ticking of the clock in the living room, his breathing slow and even, the room calling out to him. He let his cellphone drop to the floor, the crash muffled by the carpets. Removable carpets he'd found at the store, which he'd put along this hallway in particular, because it was the one he always imagined Christine learning to walk in.

He leaned his forehead against the door and rested his other hand beside it, spreading his fingers. Half of him was terrified of opening the door; the other half begged for him just to get on with it.

He took a deep breath. He imagined her face, her blue-green eyes, her beautiful smile. He imagined their daughter: tiny fingers, tiny lips, tiny eyes that smiled and winked at him.

He lifted his head. He curled his fingers around the knob.

He twisted.

He walked into their room.

* * *

**Interested?**

**Tips on how to live through the hiatus: watch Angel. I prefer David Boreanaz as Booth but I'm okay with watching him be a brooding vampire as well.**

**83 days to Season 8! Watch the promo! Amazingness ensues.**


	9. Running Out Of Time

**A/N: I know, I know; you must all hate me right now. But I ran out of inspiration and was tired of writing angst, so I just sat here looking at this story and wished for a happy ending.**

**Not that it's in this chapter. But I've got a rough outline written up already for it, which makes me quite happy.**

**Also, SEASON 8 STARTS SHOOTING TODAY! I'm currently glued on Twitter, waiting for some troll tweets to get me through the rest of the wait.**

**So without further ado: where were we, again?**

**DISCLAIMER: *sigh* You already know.**

* * *

The room was so _familiar._

Booth stood in the doorway, one hand still wrapped tight around the doorknob. He let his eyes wander around the room, his breathing speeding up as he took in the life he'd left behind: his clothes littered across the room, her jewelry neatly organized on the dresser. He felt his chest tighten at the half-full bottle of water on her night table, the baby toys littered on the floor, the tiny dress he'd bought Christine still on its tiny hanger in his open closet.

He stepped into the room, entranced. He shut off the part of his brain that was screaming at him to "get out get out get out" and allowed himself to just..._feel._

The room was cold, abandoned for so long. Every tiny detail of the room was exactly as it had been before, exactly as he remembered. He walked along the room, dragging his fingers against the cold sheets, the soft silk of her blouse, the chiffon of Christine's dress. He picked up her perfume, inhaling her scent deeply. He pricked his fingers on her comb, let Bones' necklace slip through his fingers.

There was a tugging sensation deep in his chest, and he walked slowly around the room towards the clock. He picked it up, turning it around in his hands. His own clock had been old, one he'd kept from his days in the army. It was a sort of memorabilia to him, one that had never been quite relevant until now. He couldn't catalogue every scratch and nick, because he'd never noticed if they were on his old clock. There was nothing on that clock that was quite important to him. If it hadn't been for that damn video, he wouldn't have even noticed it had switched.

Except.

Except, it had been from when he was in the army. One day, earlier in the morning than he felt he could even imagine, he'd woken from a violent nightmare and thrown his arm sideways. His clock had skittered off the table and smashed on the cement floor. Wide awake with fear, he'd collected the pieces and placed them on the table before allowing himself to go back to sleep. In the morning he'd reassembled, but one of the rubber pieces on the bottom had been gone.

He flipped the clock over and looked. All four of the rubber pieces were there.

Pelant had screwed up.

He couldn't help a wry smile, but it felt forced and hurt on his cheeks. He turned and walked towards the closet, grabbing a sheet from the dresser and wrapping the alarm clock in it. He hid the clock behind the dresser, figuring he'd check out what it was later.

Standing up, he continued his reconnaissance, feeling her presence in every corner of the room. He bit back the tears threatening behind his eyes, controlled his breathing, and prayed for her to be there, impossibly. He curled his fingers into her clothes, fingered her makeup and moisturizers, toyed with the shampoo in his shower.

He thought he was okay. Not because she was gone – never because she was gone – but because he'd finally accepted that he had to let them go in order to find them. He believed it with every muscle in his body, every inch of his heart.

Then he stepped on a stuffed pig.

He startled slightly, then knelt on the floor beside the toy pig. Like always, he'd fought for a 'normal' toy – a stuffed bear. But he remembered the way she'd reacted to bears in their previous case, and he'd gone to the store and seen the pig.

It was a totally cartoon-y pig. Fat, pink, with round blue eyes and long eyelashes, a smile curling beneath its nose. It had reminded him of Jasper, and her, and he'd bought it immediately, not even bothering to look at the price tag. She'd loved it, and had placed it with Christine, who had cooed and wrapped her tiny fingers around the pig's ears.

He was so lost in his memories that he didn't notice his reaction to them. His fingers curled tightly into the pig's belly, the imprints of his fingers clear in the soft fabric. His shoulders shook with the force of his emotion. Tears streamed down his cheeks, slipping between his lips and leaving salty tracks on his tongue.

His forehead fell to the floor, his body curled around the pig, and he broke.

* * *

Angela sat on her couch, staring blankly at the TV. It felt like the past hour had lasted forever, dragging on and on to the ends of the earth. After Booth had called her, she'd called Hodgins, quickly filling him into the situation and sending him off to find Booth. She'd paced and paced, done her best to calm down Michael, and finally, forty-five minutes later, Hodgins had helped Booth walk through their door.

He looked _terrible. _His hands were covered in tiny scratches, droplets of blood, and the imprint of his fingernails. He was still shaking all over, uncontrollably. His breathing was ragged, his lips dry, and he'd nearly collapsed the moment he'd walked in the door. His cheeks were tear-stained, his jaw twitching constantly.

But it was his eyes that had gotten to her. His eyes, red and empty and haunted. Every part of him was broken, shredded apart, and it had taken nearly another fifteen minutes to get Booth into a room.

Once they'd closed the door behind them, juggling all the things they considered to be dangerous to him at the moment, Hodgins had run his hand down over his face, clearly struck by the way he'd found Booth. "It took me so long just to get him out of there," Hodgins had said. "He was worse then, believe it or not. He could hardly stand."

Angela leaned back, stretching out on the couch, listening to the soft sounds of Hodgins in Michael's room, calming him down. After they'd put Booth in the room half an hour ago, no sounds had come out of it, not even the sound of him sobbing. It was a real shock to all of them – Zach included, who had wandered into the scene once they'd gotten him in through the door. Although they knew Flinn would jump at the opportunity of making Zach go to jail because he wasn't in the company of Hodgins or Booth, that had been less than important when she'd gotten Booth's call.

"He was the strongest of all of us," Zach had mused in his super-rational way. "What does it mean to us, if he's in this state?"

* * *

Booth lay in the bed, his hands curled in front of him. He stared blankly at the white-washed wall in front of him, barely registering it. A small part of his subconscious was paying attention to the room, to himself. His subconscious was paying attention to the way his body was still trembling, to the salt that cracked his lips and dried his tongue, to his aching hands and burning eyes.

The rest of his brain was far off in its own world. He wasn't seeing the wall or feeling the pain. He was with _her_, and she made everything better.

_She wrapped herself around him, pressing her face into his chest and breathing deeply, the tears that had left tracks on her cheeks now absorbed in his shirt._

_Her grip lessened, and her fingers slipped around to trace the musculature of his chest. She sniffed, the corners of her lips trembling, and her fingers tightened in the fabric. _

"_I missed you," she said, her voice breaking. "So much."_

_His hands ran down her back, soothing her. One hand pressed against the small of her back, holding her close; the other slipped through her auburn curls. He pressed his lips to her forehead, delighting in the soft skin beneath his lips, in her unique taste. His nose buried in her hair, and he sniffed at it, nearly tasting the smell: the coconut of her soap, the vanilla of her moisturizer, the mint of her shampoo. Her breath was hot against his collarbone, and she nearly collapsed. _He _was the only one keeping her up; _he _was the only one keeping her alive._

He didn't even notice when his imagination became a dream and he fell asleep.

* * *

She stretched out against the silk sheets, finding a small pleasure in the cool feel of them. Her father hadn't even let them spend a day in the same house. The moment they'd woken, they'd moved on. This new house was luxurious, not like the cottage at all. Her room was draped in silk and satin, and even Christine had gone to bed in a brand-new, gold-embroidered, sheep-skin blanket.

How this was low-key, she had no idea. But she hadn't bothered to argue with her father. Two weeks of being on the run had gotten to her, stolen the energy from her body. She could hardly stay awake these days: she woke in fits to feed Christine and follow her father around, but for the most part, she slept. In a bed, once they got into a house with one. In the car, as they drove across miles and miles of country road. She let all the pain and stress leach out of her bones and allowed herself to sleep, slip away into her dreams.

She still catalogued things, though. She knew the way Max reacted to her. She knew that Max was worried: it was etched in every line of his face. She knew Max needed her to keep fighting, but he didn't understand her. She knew she was being mean – he'd done the exact same thing, to save the people he loved – but she almost didn't care. Almost.

Pressing her cheek to her pillow, she curled up into herself. Did he understand the pain she was going through, being without him? Part of her told her he did, but the stubborn part of her told her he couldn't. It was torturing her, squeezing her chest, cutting off her air supply. She loved Christine, but life without him was nearly unbearable. She could hardly stand the torture.

Closing her eyes, she swallowed dryly. The pain was killing her, breaking her down. Part of her wanted to run to him, ignore her rationality and fall into his arms, his comfort. But the rest of her knew better. She couldn't leave because she wanted a family, not the life of a fugitive. She wanted that all-American dream that she had once scoffed at. She wanted the happiness that had soaked over her every minute of every day. She wanted the comfort of falling asleep to him, waking up to him. She wanted the familiarity of her daughter in her arms while his arms caressed her hair and her shoulders.

She fell asleep with the thoughts in her head and her dreams were filled with him.

* * *

By the time Booth ambled into the lab, he felt like he'd drunk a bathtub-full of vodka and whiskey. His head pounded with every step. His muscles ached from the trembling. He'd washed his hands for what felt like hours, but all it had done was clear his wounds, leaving tiny scrapes and cuts that stung every time he breathed. His eyes had cleared slightly with the eye drops but they still threatened to spill tears, and no amount of water had been able to rehydrate his mouth.

Cam raised her eyebrows as he walked in through the door. Angela had filled her in on the situation earlier in the morning, and no one had expected Booth to show up.

"Need anything?" she asked. She stood up, striding towards him. "I have water, some food."

"News," he murmured. "Have any news?"

"Not particularly," she hedged. "We're still working through the new information. We'll get there eventually, though. I swear by the end of the day, we'll have news."

Booth didn't answer, wincing slightly. He felt a tug at the base of his throat; a need to scream. He knew it wasn't Cam's fault, but he wanted to yell at her – and the rest of the lab – to hurry up so that they could find her already. The worry that he'd nursed since last night – that they were no longer alive; that Pelant had caught up to them – had not been reassured by the various explanations he'd come up with: they couldn't be dead because Max would've told him; Pelant wanted him to freak out.

Hodgins strode into the room, looking particularly determined. In one hand he held a file, in the other he held...Booth's clock.

He stopped the moment he saw Cam and Booth, and his hand quickly flew behind his back, hiding the clock. It was too late, though – Booth had seen it, and was staring at the area where his wrist disappeared behind his back.

"Okay, fine," Hodgins said with a nervous laugh, trying to sound defeated. He pulled the clock forward, letting Cam and Booth steal nervous glances at it. "I found it in your closet."

Booth's fingers curled into fists. "You searched my room?"

"We moved as little as we could," Hodgins quickly explained. "But we had to find the clock. You understand, right?"

Booth breathed shallowly, and after a cautious glance at him, Cam nodded at Hodgins. "So what did you find?"

"That's the thing," he said slowly. "I'm not quite sure." He turned the clock over in his hand, inspecting it. "I'm fairly certain it's a camera feed, but that doesn't make sense to me. Why put a camera in your room when he can just hack into your camera's feed?" Hodgins shrugged, poking at the clock. "Angela's still looking over some components. She thinks there might be more to the feed than just a camera. But other than that, this clock is relatively safe. No bomb, no poisonous gas...really, it's just a clock with a built-in camera."

Booth still looked particularly tense, so Cam took matters into her own hands. "What about particulates? Anything we can tie to Pelant? Or..." Cam cleared her throat, throwing a wary look at Booth before continuing. "Or Dr. Brennan?"

Booth's hands clenched again.

"Nope," Hodgins said quickly. "Nothing we can tie to Brennan. But there are a couple of particulates I think may mach the soil in front of Pelant's house. I'm not certain, of course, but...you never know, right?"

Booth strode out of the room, clearly holding onto his control by a mere thread, and Hodgins and Cam exchanged glances.

"Is that really it, Hodgins?"

"I'm telling the absolute truth. There's nothing else I got from this. I mean, it's probably virtually indistinguishable from Booth's original clock. It's on time, it's got alarms set, it's pretty much just, well, a clock."

Cam sat down, rubbing her hands over her face. There was little to nothing for them to do. Angela worked hard on the triangle, but it was practically useless now that they knew that Pelant knew about it. He'd probably managed to hack Angela's system, she mused. And the tape was getting nowhere: there were a couple of blips along the way, but they could be easily something like a fly running into the camera. Nothing that would convince a jury.

The bones were getting them nowhere. The squinterns spent entire days looking over every surface tirelessly, in increasing degrees of detail: this morning, she'd walked in to find Daisy and Wendell looking at bone surfaces through magnifying glasses, as all of the microscopes were currently in use. She'd nearly cried with laughter, and it had been a small relief to her. Next, she knew, they'd upload scans of the skeleton into Angela's system and try to figure it out from there. It was a dangerous thought, especially since they knew they were working with Pelant, but they had nowhere else to go.

Resisting the urge to claw her eyes out, Cam leaned back again. Every particle had been examined. Every inch of the crime scene had been dissected. With Brennan on the run and Pelant free, the case was quickly becoming cold – and if new evidence didn't surface soon, there would be nothing more the lab could do.

* * *

Booth sat behind his desk, examining his socks. He'd pulled off his shoes and rested his feet on the edge of the table: completely unprofessional, he knew, but right now he didn't give a damn.

He'd immersed himself so much in paperwork that he'd blown through it, and Hacker had refused to give him anymore. "You're taking work away from the rest of the agents," he argued. "Just go home and relax."

But he couldn't relax. He had to _work. _His fingers itched to move, to write, to seek for answers.

He hadn't gone back home after leaving Cam and Hodgins at the lab, although he so sorely wanted to. There was no use. The fact that Hodgins and Angela had searched their room – _their room _– had him on edge, and although part of him wanted to inspect the damage, the rest of him knew he couldn't handle another trip into their room. Not again.

He absentmindedly picked up her file again, flipping through it. This was his own personal version of the file, so he'd pretty much scribbled everything out. He'd denied every little piece of circumstantial evidence they had, and had circled everything that pointed to her innocence.

The last page was covered with writing. He'd been sitting at his desk a couple of days ago, once again out of paperwork, and had begun writing. He hadn't even noticed what he'd written until the phone jerked him out of his reverie, and he had read over his own confessions.

_Why did you have to go?_

_You can trust me. You know you can trust me._

_I miss you._

_Christine must be so grown up now._

_Can she walk? Can she talk?_

_Does she remember me?_

_Do you remember me?_

_Miss you._

And then, over and over again in an endless refrain:

_Love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you ..._

Sighing, he closed the folder and spun around a couple of times. Every once in a while he let his sight drift to the windows, and watched as agents looked in warily at him. Hacker had stood at his office door for nearly fifteen minutes, which hadn't bothered Booth at all. _Let him gloat, _he thought bitterly, even though he knew Hacker wasn't gloating. It was nice to take his hate out on someone.

So really, he wasn't half as angry as he thought he'd be when he let his sight drift to the windows again – caressing lovingly over a picture of his family as it went – and locked eyes with the one person he didn't expect to see ever again...and the one person he didn't want to talk to, ever again.

Hannah.

* * *

**Aha! Shocked? Yeah, probably not. It was worth a try. I've waited a very long time to take out my anger on Hannah. **

**Well sort of. I actually wrote another story with Hannah - 'Close For Comfort' - but I didn't get to have Booth scream at Hannah half as much as I wanted to.**

**I swear I'll try to update soon!**


	10. Simmering

**A/N:**** Hannah is incredibly OOC in this character, because really, it's way more fun to hate her when she's being horrid. So if you don't like it, don't read.**

**Disclaimer: they're not mine. *sigh***

* * *

He didn't move. He hardly breathed. It was almost vicious, the tension in the air, cutting through the door all the way out to her. He was so focused, all his pain and anger concentrated on her, that he didn't even notice the way the rest of the floor seemed to react: the agents gave a double take at the sight of the blonde who had suddenly disappeared from their lives, and Hacker poked his head out and gave a low whistle at the sight.

Hannah was the first to recover, and she strode towards the door. If she hadn't been a reporter, she would've made a damn good actress, because she easily disguised the tremor in her hands as she turned the doorknob and let herself in.

"Hello, Seeley," she said, voice wavering almost imperceptibly.

"Hannah," he said curtly, and the formality was another stab in his side. Once upon a time they had been in love...right? Okay, so maybe not love, but something damn near close.

His heart ached at a sudden, crushing thought: what if this was the way it was going to be between him and Bones when she got back?

Shaking the terrifying possibility away, he slowly lowered his feet to the floor. One at a time, he allowed them to make two separate thuds, before straightening himself and crossing his hands on the desk.

Hannah inched forward, dropping herself into the chair in front of his desk. There was an awkward pause as they sat, each taking on a different persona. Hannah was oddly quiet and shy, her eyes focused on the purse in her lap. Booth abandoned the kind personality he once had around her in favor of a bad cop act. He was rigid, muscles tense, back ramrod straight. Curling his fingers, he pressed his palms together and stared, steely, at Hannah.

"I..." she started, poking at her bag. She cleared her throat and shifted. "I, um, heard about Temperance."

His fingers curled into fists.

When he didn't say anything, Hannah continued. "I'm sorry. I know she didn't do anything, and this was...well, this was probably for the best."

Booth tensed at the 'probably', ignoring the urge to rip the words from her. _You can't say that, _he thought fiercely. _You can't know what I'm feeling; you can't know what we're going through._

"I mean," Hannah said slowly, "I'm sure it'll be okay. I mean, you'll clear her name, and she'll come back and your partnership can continue as normal."

Something pushed in his brain, trying to click, and he shifted imperceptibly.

"It's not like you're her husband," Hannah continued, unknowingly digging herself into her own grave. "I mean, sure, you guys are great friends. But friendship changes, right? You can't do everything for her. Friendship is strong, but it's not everything." She struggled with her words, trying to find the right thing to say. "You can't...blame yourself. You guys are..."

She stuttered to a stop, her eyes lifting slowly to catch Booth's. His expression had become sharper than knives, digging into her skin. She raced over her words, trying to catch what part of what she'd said had made him so angry at her.

"What do you know?"

His voice was curt, pulled tight with tension, his eyes narrowed.

"Well," she said slowly. "I know this...Christopher Pelant was released from jail. I know that he framed Temperance for murder. I know she ran away." She paused. "Is there something I'm missing?"

His voice was empty, devoid of emotion as he talked, and she wondered if anger would've made her less intimidated by him."Did you know one of the interns at the lab died? Did you know she slept at my apartment that night? Did you know we're together, that we have a child? A baby girl. Her name is Christine. Did you know Bones took Christine with her?"

Hannah leaned back, letting out a long breath. She'd known, of course, but she'd hoped he'd changed after Brennan had left. She'd always known Temperance was more than just a friend to him. It was in the way he'd spent so much time talking about her in Afghanistan, bringing up her name in the most innocent, inane situations. It was in the way he looked at her, even when she was around. It was in the way he devoted his life to her without even realizing it. It was in the way, that night she'd almost been hit by a car, he'd jumped up from dinner and ran out without a word, unconsciously sensing that she was in trouble.

She had been a consolation prize, no matter what he told her. She had been a makeshift plug to fill the void in his life, a square trying to fit into a circle. Temperance had always been the one he truly loved. She'd always known, no matter how much she tried to lie to herself.

But Temperance had _left. _She hadn't only _left_; she'd taken his daughter with her. Temperance didn't deserve him. Temperance could go burn in hell, for all she cared.

She stood up suddenly, feeling as if her body was compressing with pressure. Pulling the article out of her purse, she threw it on his desk. "Here," she said. "I didn't have all the information but I wrote up a rough draft of an article about the case. I'll send you the finished one as soon as I can, okay?" She walked to the door, then turned back to look at him one last time. "If you want to talk after you read that," she said, "You call me."

Without another word, she turned around and left.

* * *

Booth paced his office, each and every muscle in his body tensed, pulled tight. Leaning against the corner of Booth's desk, Cam flipped through the article for the third time.

"She planned this," Booth said tightly. "Damn her, she planned this perfectly."

Cam couldn't deny it. The article Hannah had written was so perfectly worded, it was sick. She'd written about the case, all right, and she'd written in a way that was going to make everyone want to interview her. She had written down all the facts, but she'd also written her 'personal view'.

"I knew Temperance Brennan," Cam read under her breath. "She is an extremely rational and pragmatic person. I have no doubt in my mind that she is the murderer, and was covering up her terrible crime by taking a completely unrelated case with a completely unrelated suspect and saying it was him."

She hadn't just made Temperance look guilty as hell, she'd done her best to clear Pelant's name, too. She'd interviewed him and picked the best, most sane statements. Cam wasn't surprised that Booth was furious. She had done everything perfectly.

"You know what she's going to ask to do, right?" Booth muses furiously. "She's going to publish that article unless I speak with her. I can't stop it from being published because of free press. I can't go through any other venue or any other person." He slammed his fist down on his desk, and the shiver reverberated through Cam. "Damn her!"

"You know what I'm going to say, Seeley," Cam sighed. "You want to keep 's name clean? Go talk to Hannah. Try not to kill her, by the way."

Booth slammed his fist down once again before striding out of his office without another word.

* * *

Hannah sat demurely in the diner, hands folded in front of her. She'd taken the liberty to order two cups of coffee and two slices of apple pie, and they were sitting in front of her. Between them was a folder containing her article, and she had no doubt that Seeley would appear within, at the latest, another hour.

When she'd first heard the news, she'd been seething. She'd known things had ended difficultly between her and Seeley, but she'd been certain they'd get back together. She'd give him seven months, the same amount of time she knew Temperance and Seeley had been separated during war. Then she'd come back and they'd get together again. No way he would be over her that quickly.

But then she'd received a call, and a friend of hers from DC had told her the news: Seeley and Temperance weren't just together, they were having a kid. She'd been shocked, but she'd skipped over the pain and gone straight to anger. There hadn't been anything she could do to separate them, but she'd gone out back into the dating scene with a vengeance. Every single man was a potential partner to her. She thought that maybe if she got married, then went back to DC and 'ran into' Seeley, he'd be jealous. She hadn't been willing to settle down with him but she had found someone she loved with all her heart. And he'd feel the same pain she did.

She'd followed the news about Temperance, reading every single article she possibly could. She gathered all the information, then compiled her own article, picking every word carefully. She had been surprised that almost all articles were built on circumstantial evidence: everyone who knew her had refused to answer any questions. She had taken all she knew about Temperance and twisted it into lies, so that the end piece was an article that would, with no doubt, convince the world Temperance was guilty.

A small part of her felt bad about writing the article. Temperance had never purposely hurt her – well, except once, and even then she'd been devastated over it: when she'd asked Seeley for a chance, and he'd turned her down. Hannah felt her heart race at that memory, proud that she'd made Temperance hurt as much as she did. Less, actually – Hannah had never had a child with Seeley, although now she pressed her hand against her abdomen and wished she had, just to spite them.

The door opened and a tinny bell rung, and Seeley stepped into the diner. Hannah's stomach twisted at the sight of him. She hadn't seen him in person since that fateful night, but she had seen pictures of him since then. Pictures of him and Temperance, where she could pick up the differences: he stood taller, his shoulders were wider, his smiles bigger. Happiness had made him hotter than ever.

But now that happiness had been ripped from him, and he looked worse for the wear. His cheeks were scruffy from not shaving, and his body was better muscled but less healthy. He looked dangerous as he stalked in now, though, and as he caught her eyes she could feel the heat rolling off of him in waves.

He sat down heavily across from her, not even looking at the pie. He focused on her, and she felt her resolve wavering as she shifted.

"Hello, Seeley," she said, and when he didn't say anything she continued. "I know you're here because you want me to destroy the article, and I want to let you know about the stakes."

His eyes bored holes into her.

"You can destroy this one if you want," she said, waving her hand at the folder in front of her. "But there is another on my computer, five other hardcopies spread around the world, and one, in fact, in the hands of someone who could make it very noticeable the moment I say the word. So don't go thinking I haven't thought this entirely through."

He clenched his jaw.

"Oh, I have a decent amount of money, Seeley. Enough to live pretty damned well. But if I publish this article, the money I will make will probably go much, much beyond your salary."

"So it's money you want." His voice was bristling with anger, but he kept a tight hold on his rein.

"No, Seeley. I want you to know what I'm giving up. A lot of money." She raised her eyebrows. "What will you lose if you say the wrong word? I will make sure that article reaches every major news station in this world. I will blow this story way out of proportion. I will go on every talk show I can and make sure that every eye in this world is looking for Temperance, and that everyone thinks she is dangerous. Take what you're imagining and multiply it by a hundred. That's how bad things are going to be for you guys: not just here but around the whole world."

He tightened his fists.

"What do I want, Seeley? I want you to feel the pain I felt when I was told that you and Temperance were together, and with a child. I want you to feel as horrible as I felt when I realized that you, who claimed to love me, didn't even take the time to tell me that you were with the woman that I was constantly jealous of because she clearly had a bigger part in your heart than me. I want you to feel threatened and betrayed and very, very nervous."

She pulled the folder towards her and put it back in her briefcase. "Here's what I don't want you to do. I don't want you to let anyone know that this article exists. I don't want you to ask your FBI buddies or Angela to help you delete them or destroy them. I don't want you to let any of your friends threaten me or even look at me the wrong way. I want you to suffer, and I want you to suffer alone."

She dropped a couple of bills on the table. "One last thing, Seeley. If you go looking for your...whatever she is now, I'll let this article go, too. Solve the case if you want. Make it safe for her to come home if you want. But if you try to bring her home yourself, the article goes out."

She stood, smiling sweetly. "Have fun, Seeley. One wrong move and you're toast."

* * *

He didn't go back to the FBI. He didn't go to the lab. He didn't tell Cam what happened, other than making sure she knew not to tell anyone.

He went home, and he curled on his sofa and ached for her.

He had searched for her, even though he knew it was pointless. He'd driven from motel to motel, asking for names she might've used – Joy Keenan, Wanda, Roxie – but he knew that if he were to find her in a motel, it would be only if he saw her. He wondered if she'd go to him, given the chance. Or would she walk away, hide herself until he left?

He couldn't do that anymore, and he knew it. Hannah wasn't going to back down, and she'd made sure he knew it. He was stuck, but oh, he would have his revenge.

In the meantime, he allowed sleep to overcome him and prayed for strength.

* * *

She watched as Max played with Christine, spinning her around in the air. She laughed and squealed, and Brennan squelched the urge to take her away from him.

She was terrified that her daughter would forget about Booth. The worst thing in the world to her would be if Christine forgot, no matter how much she tried to remind her. The videos and the pictures and the recordings of his warm voice, like honey dripping on pancakes. The shirts that smelled like him, that she'd wrap them in when she missed his touch.

She walked away from the two of them, leaving them to their play, and walked into her bedroom. Sleep had evaded her, for a million reasons. She didn't sleep because she was terrified of getting caught. She didn't sleep because she was constantly doting on Christine. She didn't sleep because the lack of his weight and warmth beside her left such a hole in her bed that she was irrationally scared of rolling into it.

On the bed she had to herself, hidden behind a wall, was a folded FBI sweatshirt. She pulled off her own shirt and wrapped herself in it, the feel of the fabric scraping over her bare skin like sweet torture. His smell comforted him but also reminded her of the pure lack of him. She curled onto the bed, putting in her headphones and listening to his voice again, another meaningless recording that he'd taken some morning in bed, when they'd been betting how long it would take for Christine to begin crying. They'd stated their bets before falling quiet, whispering between themselves as they waited for the first wail from the bedroom. She'd won, of course, but when she'd stood up to go after her, Booth had pushed her back down and gone himself.

Her cheek pressed against the soft pillow underneath her head and sleep overtook her.


End file.
